Project CREW: OTC, Project CREW provide model for things to come

Ozarks Technical Community College and Project CREW are charting new territory for the 2001-2002 academic year.

As OTC celebrates 10 years of service to the Springfield and surrounding community, and Project CREW enjoys its eight years of successfully preparing women for employment in the construction industry, plans are under way to expand the CREW project into other technical certificate programs offered by the college.

Project CREW, which stands for Construction Readiness Education for Women, was born eight years ago in response to a local need for skilled and semi-skilled labor in the construction trades.

OTC already had a strong construction program in place at that time, but much like the industry itself, it was predominately, if not solely, occupied by men. At the same time, women made up the largest percentage of the "hard to serve" unemployed population.

The driving goal of Project CREW was to assist women in overcoming barriers to suitable employment. From the very beginning, CREW has attracted primarily economically disadvantaged women, most of whom are single parents facing career choices that don't pay enough to allow them to abandon government financial assistance and take on the high cost of child care to go to work full-time.

Project CREW has always been about addressing these and other barriers women face by providing valuable training for work in a higher paying, competitive marketplace. The law of supply and demand has seen to it that the limited numbers of skilled and semi-skilled candidates prepared to go to work in construction are greeted with jobs that pay significantly better than the minimum entry-level wage.

For the third year in a row, Project CREW has seen 100 percent placement of its graduates in a field related to their training within four months of graduation. Beyond that, more than half of the 2000 graduates were enjoying health insurance benefits for themselves and their families within 60 days of accepting permanent employment.

All of the 2000 graduates report that they are making more money and have risen to a higher standard of living than they were experiencing prior to entering the program.

The same conditions that spurred the existence of Project CREW eight years ago are even more pressing today. There is an all-time low unemployment rate in the local area. At the same time, the local economy and the need for skilled and semi-skilled workers continues to grow in all facets of the marketplace.

Though I have found no available statistics to support this contention, based on the overwhelming response and continued interest of prospective students in Project CREW, I estimate that economically disadvantaged women continue to make up the largest percentage of the shrinking pool of unemployed people in this area.

The timing for a program prepared to address the needs of this population seems near perfect.

OTC is exploring the feasibility of applying the CREW formula for success across the board to the other nontraditional trades programs now offered by the college. In the future, CREW could come to mean Career Readiness Education for Women. The program would offer women a choice for skills training in any of the following technical areas:

Auto collision repair technology

Automotive technology

Construction technology

Diesel technology

Drafting and design technology

Electronics technology

Heating, refrigeration and air conditioning

Industrial electronics technology

Industrial maintenance technology

Machine tool technology

Printing/graphics technology

Turf and landscape management

Welding technology

The resources are already in place to actively recruit and integrate women into these trades considered nontraditional for women. New Traditions at OTC is an established, state-affiliated program the primary mission of which is to provide support services for men and women seeking non-traditional employment for their gender.

Karla Gregg, director of New Traditions at OTC, is assisting in the process of exploring funding resources for the new program, as well as continuing to work with the current CREW class to facilitate a mentoring and counseling program.

The coming weeks are expected to hold the beginning of a spring construction readiness class, but perhaps also a springboard for a whole new program.

(Jennifer Jackson is Project CREW coordinator for Ozarks Technical Community College.)