In the new advanced manufacturing space housed inside of the Fairmont High School Career Technology Center in Kettering, about a dozen juniors are at worktables, using hacksaws to cut metal bars and files to smooth the edges.
Protected by safety glasses, Tyler Morgan concentrates. "We're taking aluminum sheets and we're cutting them out into two and a half inch parts and then we're drilling holes," said Morgan.
Instructor Wes Kramer, a seasoned manufacturing engineer, also guides them on how to read an engineering drawing.
"They learn how to interpret that engineering drawing and then how to make and measure the parts that they create," said Kramer. "That's important because there's a lot of companies in the Dayton area that require these skills."
In fact, the Dayton Region Manufacturers Association says the area is home to nearly 2,500 manufacturers employing more than 130,000 workers. And they earn on average more than $86,000 a year.
Those businesses need workers with advanced skills, some of which these Kettering students will eventually learn at the Fairmont’s Career Technology Center as they use newly purchased CNC and robotics machines.
"When you think about anything in your life you see, it was touched by a CNC machine. Even those plastic coke bottles that were molded, the molds are made by CNC machines," said Kramer. "The stuff that builds everything comes from somewhere. I think its fascinating it’s here in the school."
But first, Kramer said his students need to understand the numbers.
"A lot of times people think manufacturing is kind of like you just go in and you work in a factory and you push buttons and everything's good," noted Kramer.
"But a lot of the precision machining jobs that are out there that require tight tolerances, making parts for aerospace and for automotive, workers need to know how to measure and how to do those basic math skills like adding, taking fractions, converting them to decimals, converting between units like millimeters and inches. Finding angles, all that geometric knowledge, there's a lot of companies in the Dayton area that require these skills."
In 2022, the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce awarded Fairmont a $2.1 million Career Tech Expansion Grant, which paid to renovate an existing engineering space as well as build the manufacturing room. It’s filled with some of the latest equipment, a welding station and other work tables, similar to what engineering and manufacturing companies currently use.
"This is definitely not the manufacturing that our grandparents or even really our parents experienced," said Fairmont principal Nicole Will. "So much of it is now robotics and automation."
Roughly 660 juniors and seniors are participating in one of Fairmont High School’s 15 career programs. They’re also earning credits to Sinclair Community College and potentially a $3,000 scholarship.
Sascha Draper, a senior, is headed to Sinclair with scholarship dollars. Suited in a tan flame-retardant safety coat, a metal full-face helmet and heavy gloves, he practices the "stick welding" technique, separated from others in the room by a thick, plastic curtain.
"You have an electrode that attaches to a clamp and practicing different welds on a piece of steel," he explained.
Draper proudly traces his interest in building things with his hands from his great-grandfather and grandfather. Ultimately, Draper wants to build Formula One race cars. He said precision is essential in manufacturing.
"I try and visualize [what] that piece of bar stock, that long bar will become a part one day," explained Draper. "'Cause if you're off by like, even 0.01 of an inch that can still make a huge difference and you won't see it at the time until you try and screw something and it's like, 'Oh, why is this screw sticking out so far?'"
According to Principal Will, the greatest advantage for her students is Fairmont’s career tech programs are offered on campus, right down the hallway from academic classes and extracurricular activities.
"This really is very much a future-focused program that's getting them ready for the workplace and some of those in-demand jobs that we're gonna see," she said.
