To honor National Apprenticeship Week, Rhodes State College recognized a group of their students that have worked hard as apprentices.
GROB Systems, Inc. in Bluffton partners with the school to offer an apprenticeship program full of benefits to students. Fifteen of them have completed enough on-the-job training hours to earn their journeyperson Industrial Machinist System Technician certificates. Today, they received those awards verified by The Ohio State Apprenticeship Council.
“Being that we have a certificate from a state journeyperson’s card that Rhodes has helped us to get these kids," explains Mark Reed, Supervisor of the Apprenticeship Department at GROB. "We just wanted to sit down and be able to say thank you for their efforts and let them appreciate some of the accomplishments they’ve had, because they’ve worked for 4 years to get to this.”
Not only does GROB provide hands-on education and employee benefits to the students, but they also aid them financially.
“Apprentices usually have their related instruction, which is their classroom work, like what we would have at Rhodes State," Tammy Eilerman, Senior Director of Workforce Development at Rhodes explains. "Usually most of that tuition is paid for by the company. So, it’s a great opportunity for students because then they’ll come out of college debt free.”
At the end of their time at GROB, the apprentices will have also earned an Associates Degree in either Manufacturing or Electronic Engineering Technologies.
Students that earned their journeyperson certificate include:
Trey Burnett (Bath High School), Marshall Craig (Bath High School), Chase Dunham (Leipsic High School), Lucas Gerding (Kalida High School), William Greeley (Shawnee High School), Kyle Hawkey (Bath High School), Dakota Hollar (Bath High School), Drake Lammers (Ottawa Glandorf High School), Logan McDermott (Ottawa Glandorf High School), Hunter Morman (Leipsic High School), Jordan Neidert (Fort Jennings High School), Noah Oglesbee (Columbus Grove High School), Bryce Perkins (Bath High School/Apollo), Caden Schroeder (McComb High School), and Brent Wilson (Allen East High School).
