The manufacturing apprenticeship program first developed by Toyota Motor North America in 2010 to fill the company’s talent pipeline has expanded locally as the San Antonio region’s manufacturing sector continues to grow.
Palo Alto College announced last week that it had joined the Texas Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education, or TX FAME, with an inaugural cohort of 19 students.
Founded in 2010 by Toyota and operated today by the Manufacturing Institute, the nonprofit educational arm of the National Association of Manufacturers, FAME programs operate in more than a dozen states, pairing students with a sponsor company that allows them to gain on-the-job experience while completing a two-year associate degree in advanced manufacturing technology.
Students spend three days a week getting paid to learn on the job and two days a week in the classroom, covering a curriculum that includes everything from machine shop math and robotic fundamentals to circuits, basic fluid power and electromechanical devices.
They also get schooled in softer skills, like how to craft a résumé and prepare for an interview. After graduation, most participants take a job with their sponsor company.
TX FAME’s Alamo chapter has long partnered with St. Philip’s College for the degree part of the program, which enrolls roughly 60 students at any given time. Sponsor companies include Toyota, H-E-B, CPS Energy, Toyotetsu, Joyson Safety Systems and others.
The expansion to Palo Alto College comes as British manufacturing giant JCB announced it would build its next factory on San Antonio’s South Side, creating 1,500 new jobs in the next five years.
If JCB wants to hire TX FAME-trained workers, it should probably get in line: All 19 students in the first cohort at Palo Alto College, which began in August, are being sponsored by Toyota, said Rachara Jefferson, interim dean of career and technical education.
The TX FAME program also has expanded to Texas State Technical College, which has 10 campuses across the state. The Lone Star chapter’s first cohort of 15 students, who also started in August, will serve the rapidly growing manufacturing cluster in the New Braunfels and Seguin area, such as Caterpillar, CMC Steel and Alamo Group, all sponsors of the new program.
Since 1990, durable goods manufacturing — things like cars and heavy equipment — in the 13-county region that makes up the San Antonio-New Braunfels metropolitan statistical area (MSA) rose from providing just over 23,000 jobs to almost 39,000 in 2022.
In the fourth quarter of 2022, that included 6,159 auto manufacturing jobs with an average annual wage of $98,000, plus another 6,231 auto parts manufacturing jobs with an average annual wage of just over $58,000.
Those wages are one of the selling points high school and career counselors cite when they urge young people to consider advanced manufacturing as a career, but it remains a difficult sell.
“This isn’t your grandfather’s manufacturing,” said Jefferson, whose own grandfather worked for General Motors in Detroit. “People still think of it as dirty and greasy and backbreaking work. But if you go into these environments, they are impeccable. You’ve got a lot of robots now.”
Companies have “put out the bat signal,” she said, that they “need people who can operate and repair the robots.”
Jason Dinscore, TX FAME Lone Star board president, said high schools have begun to recognize that a four-year college degree isn’t right or necessary for everyone, and that manufacturing can be a stable and well-paying career path.
The New Braunfels-Seguin area now has one of the highest concentrations of manufacturing in Texas. But as more manufacturing moves from overseas back to the United States, “we can’t fill all the positions that are out there,” he said.
The shortage is not only local. The National Association of Manufacturers launched a nationwide awareness campaign, called Creators Wanted, in an effort to fill 4 million manufacturing jobs the trade group estimates will be created through 2030.
Mike Ramsey, executive director of the City of San Antonio’s Workforce Development Office, which runs Ready to Work, the $200 million workforce development program, named a lack of awareness as another factor that hinders filling the manufacturing pipeline.
Ready to Work, which to date has more than 4,700 people enrolled in training programs, has struggled to attract people to the manufacturing training programs it supports.
“If your cousin doesn’t work there, if you don’t have any kind of connection to that place, it’s not even on your radar,” Ramsey said. “Most people have gone to a doctor’s office, they understand some of the professions in the health field, but they may not have any exposure whatsoever to a solar panel manufacturer or a truck manufacturer like Navistar.”
Ramsey said his office will be working to raise awareness among Ready to Work’s career counselors about the manufacturing training options available. Those include shorter certificate programs as well as two- and even four-year degree programs.
The Alamo Colleges, for example, offers short courses in supply chain management and production technician. Bexar County sponsors TX FAST, an accelerated manufacturing skills training program under the TX FAME umbrella. And high school internships, or “pre-apprenticeship” programs, as they’re sometimes known, can help fill entry level positions.
