"Ernie Leimkuhler" wrote in message
...
| In article t, Karl
| Townsend wrote:
|
| Well it finally happened.
| We are officially liquidating the Machine shop at South Seattle
| Community College.
|
| Sadly, I know of at least 4 machine shop closings at local colleges in
our
| (MN) area. I don't understand, why is it that today's kids aren't
interested
| in this field? (My son is an exception - he went to machine shop as a
| Junior/Senior high school pre-grad option) This is a great field to be
in,
| there's a job in every town in the whole nation, you work inside, the
pay's
| good,etc. etc. Plus you set yourself up for one of the most satisfying
| hobbies there is.
|
| Karl
|
|
|
| Seattle's problem is Boeing.
| They have laid off so many machinists over the last few years that
| there just aren't any machining jobs in the whle Northwest.
| With no job prospects, there is little insentive for kids to go into
| the field.
| It is the same reason they shut down the Avionics program and the
| Automation Controls program over the last 5 years.
|
| The guys coming out of Boeing have many years of experience and kids
| fresh out of school can't compete.

"Machinists" is a general term for all the mechanics, electricians,
plumbers, etc that build the planes. Name of the union, IAM, BTW. In order
to be a "real" machinist at Boeing, you have to go through an apprenticeship
which you really have to want in order to get it. I'm thinking about it,
but not willing to take a 25% pay cut in order to get better pay five years
down the road.
To a certain degree, you're right, though. When Boeing ramps back up,
like now, the demand increases slightly, but with more and more work being
outsourced, jobs like these are less and less at The Lazy B. One thing that
I've noticed is that the Boeing folks tend to have a much tighter set of
tolerances than folks on the "outside" who've never had to work to such
precision. When I'm even cutting wood I'm thinking about 64th's!