Blue-collar associate's degree

At Gold Mech Inc. on Broad Street, half a dozen employees gather around a table to get a quick seminar on harness safety. It is dark outside, and the front door has been locked.

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Jackie Ricciardi/Staff

Workers participate in an apprentice program at Gold Mech Inc., a mechanical contracting company in Augusta.

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Jackie Ricciardi/Staff

A student works on drawing a blueprint during a class at the hall.

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Jackie Ricciardi/Staff

Daniel Forbes practices welding during an apprentice training program at the Plumbers and Steamfitters hall on Telfair Street.

For the next three hours, the employees in the apprenticeship program will study mechanical installation methods, math and safety.

Three streets over, at the Plumbers and Steamfitters' hall on Telfair Street, another group of men in their 20s practice welding or sit in classes on reading blueprints or installing air-conditioning systems.

Daniel Forbes is in a welding booth. The apprentice tradesman has a year of after-work night school left before he gets his journeyman card -- the blue-collar associate's degree.

"I tried to go to college, but it wasn't for me," said the Cross Creek High School graduate. "This is good money. And the welding interests me."

As a fourth-year apprentice, Mr. Forbes makes more than $30,000 a year at his job with a contractor at Savannah River Site.

A journeyman plumber can make $33 per hour -- $22 of it as take-home pay after health insurance and three pensions are covered. A first-year apprentice earns $10.65 an hour in take-home pay.

"That's good money for a kid, untrained. You couldn't go to fast food and get that," Mr. Forbes said.

This isn't residential plumbing. These are tradesmen that will be installing plumbing and electrical systems for commercial and industrial clients.

Trade union training is free and one of the best kept secrets in Georgia, said Jeff Rice, the training coordinator for the Plumbers & Steamfitters Local 150. He spends more than $200,000 a year to run the school next to union headquarters. There's such an emphasis on turning out welders, plumbers or heating-air conditioning technicians that the union is putting up a HVAC training center later this year.

Labor unions have a long history of offering apprenticeships, using such programs to meet the demand for tradesmen and to replenish their ranks due to retirement.

For a non-union business like Gold Mech, the classes are a way to accelerate the learning for new hires. Better-trained employees translates into better customer service, said Tommy Archer, Gold Mech's general superintendent.

In the fourth year, an employee concentrates on building codes and gets a state plumbing or medical gas license.

"There's a lot of responsibility that comes with those trades. The work that you do affects other people. The system that you're building -- the med gas system in a hospital -- there are people going to be on life support, breathing through the pipes you're installing," Mr. Archer said.

On average, Gold Mech hires a dozen new people each year, he said.

The instructors are paid by the company, and the voluntary training is free to the employees.

Mr. Archer said about 80 percent of employees take advantage of the four-year apprenticeship program. There are 20 apprentices now.

Those who drop out are either unable to invest the time or decide they're not interested in the mechanical trades.

Gold Mech started its apprenticeship program in 1986. Mr. Archer went through it when he started working for the company 16 years ago.

"There was a lot more to it than I thought when I first came into the trade," Mr. Archer said. "Employees installing the systems are learning the why behind the procedures."

Morris Beard is the training director for the area electrical joint apprenticeship training program housed next to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

The electricians don't have a self-contained training program like the plumbers; they send their apprentices to Augusta Technical College for night school.

Mr. Beard said the first couple of years can be hard -- in a way, it is like learning a new language.

The description about a journeyman card's being the blue-collar associate's degree isn't far from the truth. With a few extra classes -- English, for example -- the credit earned during the apprenticeship program can become an associate's degree, Mr. Rice said.

Over the decades, the unions have turned out enough apprentices to meet the demand of contractors that use union laborers.

Mr. Beard said demand is increasing because of the upcoming work at SRS with the MOX Project, the National Security Agency facility at Fort Gordon and expansions at the hospitals. There was a 70-student boost the past year in electrical apprentices.

On the plumbing and welding side, there is also an anticipation of more apprentices. Mr. Rice said. He has 51 of them now.

"I look for my apprenticeship to increase 100 percent within the next two years because of the work coming up."

Replenishing the ranks will be sorely needed. The IBEW Local has about 700 members, Mr. Beard explained, and consider that half of them will be reaching retirement age of 55 in the next few years.

"Coming up in the next seven to eight years, there's a huge number of people to retire. It has already started," Mr. Beard said. "Hopefully, they will stay and work beyond 55, but some of them will retire."

What the apprenticeship program aims to do is turn out qualified people who can run a job. Many of them will become contractors themselves after becoming journeymen.

Mr. Forbes said the four years of working all day and then attending four hours of school two nights a week has been rough.

"But at the same time," he said, "you're getting a big reward at the end."

Reach Tim Rausch at (706) 823-3352 or timothy.rausch@augustachronicle.com.