Philanthropy organizations can help rural companies fill skilled labor positions through internships, other programs

A student intern at KEITH in Madras, Oregon.
(KEITH courtesy photo via The Daily Yonder)

Over the past two decades, finding and retaining skilled manufacturing talent has become increasingly difficult. The challenges seen at KEITH Manufacturing Company in Madas, Oregon, are similar to other areas of the country where the sector can't find enough workers, reports Nick Flouriezos of The Daily Yonder. Mike Feigner, KEITH's plant manager, told him, "I've been doing this job since 2006, and it seems like you always have a labor problem. . . . We suck up a lot of that skilled labor that is a great fit for us quickly, and then we're trying to fit it with other people who maybe aren't looking for that long-term commitment to learning those skills."

If companies can't find long-term workers, retention and training soak up more company resources. "The company has no choice but to train and support homegrown talent if it wants to continue producing the self-unloading conveyor belt system that has become a staple in waste and recycling trucks worldwide," Flouriezos explains. "One thing that’s helped? A partnership with Oregon STEM and its Spark Oregon earn-and-learn initiative that helped pay for KEITH to employ four local high school interns for the summer."

Madras, pop. 7,500, is located in
Jefferson County, Ore. (Wikipedia map)

Earn-and-learn money "helped the students justify doing the internship when they could have been making more working full-time at the local McDonald's for the summer, Feigner says. Working three days a week for two months, the students were exposed to everything from welding and forklifts to assembly and engineering work with the R&D team," Flouriezos reports. At the end of the first internship, the company was able to hire one of the interns. Feigner told him, "I think this is exactly what the country needs. . . .Even if we get one student every two or three years that ends up being a direct-hire, I would call that a win."

What worked in Oregon exemplifies the ingenuity many philanthropy organizations use to address shortages. "Philanthropies with a technology focus or background have been particularly creative in funding education and workforce programs," Fouriezos adds. "That’s fitting, says Matt Dunne, executive director of the Center on Rural Innovation based in his hometown of Hartland, Vt." Dune told Fouriezos: “If you dig into it, a lot of it has to do with the economy and the impacts that a completely unequal recovery from the 2008 recession led to. And if you look at the driver of that divide, it really comes down to the winners and losers of the knowledge economy driven by technology."

At times, philanthropy can do what government or private funding cannot. Josh Elder, vice president and head of grant-making at The Siegel Family Endowment, told Fouriezos: "We embrace the idea that philanthropy should operate as society’s risk capital. . . . We want to be able to support early-stage things that others might not look at."