|
Credit: Nick Romanenko
Christine White, senior electrician and
maintenance mechanic, uses a meter to
measure air flow as supervisor Orlando
Rodriguez inspects duct work in the RUCS
building on the Busch campus. White and
Rodriguez are graduates of facilities’
craft trainee program, which offers
employees on-the-job training in a
skilled trade. White began her career at
Rutgers as a custodian and Rodriguez as
a security guard. He now supervises nine
employees and 27 buildings on the Busch
and Livingston campuses.
|
In 1984, Orlando Rodriguez was working the night shift as a security guard for the Rutgers University Police Department when he spotted a job posting for a plumbing apprenticeship, a skill he’d always wanted to learn. On the day of the interview, child care for his 1 year-old fell through. So Rodriguez, who typically cared for his son during the day while his wife worked at Rutgers as a housekeeper, had to take the baby with him to the interview.
“I was able to feed my son at the same time I addressed the interviewers’ questions. They were so impressed that they offered me the job the same day,” says Rodriguez, now an operations area manager in Facilities Operations and Services in New Brunswick.
Rodriguez left the police department to embark on a journey as a “craft trainee,” an apprenticeship program that offers Rutgers employees the opportunity to learn a specific trade through paid on-the-job training. At the same time, the program allows the university to staff some of its hard-to-fill jobs.
The craft trainee program, which requires a four-year commitment, is managed by University Facilities and Capital Planning. Rutgers’ Housing Office has a similar program. As required by law, the university’s apprentice program must be registered with and meet the criteria of the state and federal departments of labor. A joint advisory training committee of facilities employees oversees the program at Rutgers.
“As an educational institution, it is essential that we help people to expand their skills,” says Jeff Maschi, associate director with Rutgers’ Office of Labor Relations. “The craft trainee program essentially turns employees with limited skills, such as grounds workers and custodians, into journeymen electricians, maintenance mechanics, carpenters, plumbers and workers skilled in heating and air-conditioning repair. A number of trainees have gone on to become supervisors.”
But the path to career growth is hard work and not every employee is suited to the program. Craft trainee openings – driven by workplace demand – are posted universitywide through University Human Resources. Typically there are three such postings a year. Employees who wish to apply must meet several qualifications, such as having earned a high school diploma or equivalent and a good attendance record in their current jobs. In addition, applicants need recommendations from their current supervisors. Eligible candidates are interviewed by a selection committee, which consists of supervisors from each campus.
Another element of the program is schooling: Participants are required to complete 144 hours of vocational instruction each year of the four-year program. Rutgers’ facilities division partners with the Middlesex County Vocational Schools to deliver technical instruction. Along with their day jobs, craft trainees attend classes two nights a week. Trainees are required to pay the costs of the Vo-Tech program – tuition, materials and books – which are reimbursed by Rutgers upon successful completion of the program.
During their apprenticeship, program participants are paid on an increasing wage scale. Each apprentice is assigned to a campus and a mentor-supervisor, rotating among campuses every 16 months. “We need to prepare our trainees for working on each campus because we don’t know where the eventual opening will be,” says Carol Trexler, associate director of facilities human resources.
The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that each trainee receives an educational benefit worth between $40,000 and $150,000. Rodriguez says the rewards go beyond a monetary value. The program, he says, helps people help themselves. “It changed my entire life and my family’s,” he says. “But you have to want it – it’s a huge commitment.”
In the midst of his training as a plumber/pipe fitter, Rodriguez decided he wanted to learn the air-conditioning mechanics trade as well, which meant four nights of school a week for four years. After completing both programs, he was hired in 1990 by the facilities division as a journeyman plumber, switching over to air-conditioning mechanics two years later. In 1997, he was promoted to shift supervisor and three years ago to area manager. He now supervises nine workers and is responsible for 27 buildings on the Livingston and Busch campuses.
Rodriguez’s higher salary has allowed him to send two of his children to college. Another bonus of the training is that it gave him the skills and the confidence to open his own shop, O & J Heating and Air-Conditioning in Plainfield. “A lot of people who have gone through the program have been able to start their own businesses as a sideline,” Rodriguez says.
Trexler says that since its inception in 1980, the craft trainee program has focused on three major areas: developing well-trained, skilled workers to fill critical positions; providing entry-level employees opportunities for upward mobility; and serving as an affirmative action tool in placing minorities and women into skilled crafts positions where they were not adequately represented.
Since 2004, 49 participants have completed the program and 46 of them are still at Rutgers, including five women. “This statistic not only validates the success of the program, but it also confirms the university’s role as an employer of choice,” Trexler says.
Qualifications and requirements of the craft trainee program:
• Rutgers employee for a minimum of six months
• High school diploma or GED
• Minimum age 18
• Satisfactory score on aptitude test administered by Middlesex County Vo-Tech
• Valid N.J. driver’s license and successful completion of Rutgers Defensive Driving course
|
