If you’re company is engaged in manufacturing or any other industry where skilled training gaps are causing you headaches, maybe it’s time for you to consider Going Pro. That’s the slick new name for what for years was known as the Skilled Trades Training Fund established during the Rick Snyder administration. The Whitmer administration has rebranded it to Going Pro, but any which way that you cut it the program could make a huge difference for a small to mid-sized local company in Michigan’s Great Southwest.
The program was showcased heavily in today’s Kinexus Group Business Roundtable, where top leaders today shared the success of the entire program.
Al Pscholka launched the discussion saying, “We’ve been very successful here in our corner of the state, in securing a number of funds for our companies. Even though we’re a small piece of the puzzle, we got 45 or 46 companies that took advantage of this skilled trades training fund to upskill people, to train up new hires, and we are now very much in ‘Going Pro Season.'”
Pscholka adds, “Now is the time that our guys at Kinexus Group want to talk to employers and businesses about opportunities that are out there, so that we can get those grant applications submitted to the state in a competitive manner. We’ve been really good at winning a lot of those competitions.”
They have in fact been very successful. Kinexus Group CEO Todd Gustafson says, “Last year 900 employers were awarded grants under the Going Pro program, with an average of $36,500 per grant. We at Kinexus Group had 45 of those companies with an average grant of $46,800. That’s solid work. As Al noted, it’s highly competitive, so now we’re trying to get the word out to those companies who have been interested in submitting an application, we’re ready to help you. If you have a relationship with our guys, that’s great and you can make the connection, or just call us directly.”
Jake Gustafson is Chief Operating Officer for the Kinexus Group. He says there’s one odd twist to it, saying, “This is prime Going Pro season, and come the first of October, all applications for grants have to be in. The state will collect them all in Lansing, there will be a six week period there where they get racked and stacked, but there is a deadline on it. We’re doing our best to get the word out. This is one of those things where you have to self-select in first, then we can provide all the help we can to make your bid as competitive as possible.”
Working with local businesses in the Tri-County region, Kinexus Group agents turned in more than 60 applications last year, and their conversion rate is higher in Southwest Michigan than in the rest of the state. Jake says, “We garnered just north of 60-percent of our applications as winners, whereas the general rate across the state is typically about 40- to 50-percent. We think we’re good, and the Grand Rapids area is very good, but it’s increasingly competitive.”
Going Pro is good for about $30 to $35-million dollars statewide, and the word is out, so now every company has got to bring their best game to capture the win through the application process.
Fortunately, the Kinexus Group is ready. They have the resources for the business community, and they we want people to know that they’re ready to help whoever has an interest or need for the program whether they aim to upskill their workforce, grow their business or any other plan to advance and close the skilled training gap in Michigan.
Team Kinexus provided a couple of good examples of what they’ve been able to accomplish in recent runs. Jake Gustafson say, “One of our most interesting examples is Tri-Mation in Paw Paw where we were able to actually use the Going Pro funds to help them establish a regular ongoing training curriculum for their staff. So that was almost a partnership-light program, or in-house participation program, where Going Pro funds were really kind of the seed money to start that program.” He notes, “I think that company was pretty sharp and probably would have done that anyway, but this made it a much more viable business proposition for them. It’s a program that helps new hires coming in, and helps lower the overall cost of a new hire, which is great for all parties involved.”
More recently, actually in just the last six weeks, Kinexus Group had a case where a company that was not selected in the first round, got a second chance when another company was unable to fulfill the requirements for their grant and had to drop out. Gustafson says, “That let Pilkington in Niles be reconsidered when that money went back into the pipeline, and was freed up to let the glass company assist some 20+ existing employees, all incumbent workers, to upskill themselves and gain additional skills making them more valuable to the company.”
The fact that Kinexus Group is good at what they do is backed up by the numbers:
- 1,907 employees at 45 companies in Berrien, Cass and Van Buren Counties were awarded funds to hire and train them…
- 1,287 incumbent workers…155 new apprentices…465 new hires…
- 392 unique trainings took place including online or onsite, on the job, in the classroom and through customized, continuing education…
- $2.1-million was awarded to those 45 companies…
- Largest amount was $183,000…Average amount was $46,800…Smallest was $1,500
- Our area was the 3rd highest awarded region in the entire state of Michigan
Pscholka says, “Our region is getting smaller and older, but this program helps companies stay here, retain people, grow, build their workforce, and build the talent pipeline. This has been a really great initiative.”
Todd Gustafson concurs and goes a step further to tell us, “It’s even more important in our current economic environment in Michigan where the population has grown by over 112,000 people since 2010, but Berrien, Cass and Van Buren Counties have seen a decline of more than 4,000 people in that same time period. Therefore, it’s even more important and vital that we get this right, that there are pipelines and companies know their opportunities and how to take care of things, and then have the resources to attract and develop people.”
The impact can be huge. It goes across all industry sectors, but the one Kinexus always talks about is manufacturing, because as Gustafson says, “Manufacturing drives our local economy. It drives the state’s economy. Even though we’ve done applications in some other areas like hospitality and health care, manufacturing has the greatest need.”
Jake concurs, saying, “Todd’s right, it’s not a majority of our jobs in the area, but when you start to pull out industries to try to find out who is affecting our region, our four key industries are lead by manufacturing with about 20-percent of the GDP for the region. It’s actually one of the more vibrant areas that we talk about with some of the really strong small to mid-sized companies that we have in Southwest Michigan, advanced manufacturing leads the way.”
Here’s the actual breakout for payroll jobs:
- Manufacturing is 18,253 payroll jobs
- Hospitality is 10,871 payroll jobs
- Health Care is 10,132 payroll jobs
Pscholka adds, “We have more manufacturing employees in the Tri-County Area than even Saginaw and Flint, and Todd Gustafson adds, “We’re fourth largest in the state. There’s Detroit…there’s outside of Detroit…there’s Grand Rapids-Kent County, and then there’s us.” He points out that manufacturing has greatly diversified over the years in our area, and adds, “We work with a majority of the 458 manufacturers in Southwest Michigan, and they all have diversified their portfolios. Most are still connected to automotive but they’re also connected to defense, mining and many other industries.”
Jake notes, “It’s a lot of the smaller Tier II and Tier III manufacturers, and there are Stage II through Stage IV companies. We place most in the bucket range of 20 to 150 employees. With an average grant of $46,000, for a big GM plant that’s not much more than a rounding error, but if you’re running one of these smaller shops that’s a big help…a wage for a year. We’ve found there’s some real tangible affect.”
So, if your company needs help in filling out the application for Going Pro training funds, contact the Kinexus Group soon. The deadline is October 1st. Reach out in Berrien County to Paul Brohman at 269-281-1823 or BrohmanP@miworks.org. If your business is in Cass or Van Buren County, reach out to Mark O’Reilly at 269-267-1153 or OReillyM@miworks.org.
