- [Announcer] Live from your public media studios WVIA presents Keystone edition business.

A public affairs program that goes beyond the headlines to address issues in Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania.

This is Keystone edition business and now moderator Kris Jones - Welcome to Keystone edition.

I'm your host, Kris Jones with its easy access to major highways and transportation hubs.

Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania is a prime location for distribution, manufacturing and transportation businesses.

You may be surprised to know some of your favorite products come from right in your own backyard.

But all of those manufacturers need people to make the products and get them in people's hands.

So they're all looking for workers.

What kinds of jobs are out there?

What do you need to know to get one?

We have experts here to help.

You can reach out by phone at +1-800-326 9842, email@keystoneatwvia.org or on social with the hashtag keystonebusiness.

But first WVIA's power looks at the big picture of manufacturing, distribution, and transportation.

- Many people are still off the job after the COVID-19 pandemic, shuttered their businesses.

While some businesses are staying dark, other industries like distribution, transportation and manufacturing are seeing growth patterns, numbers from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics show 8% of people in Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania work in production jobs, which is higher than the national average of 6%.

Hence Northeast a non-profit economic development agency shows that there are more than 100 food manufacturing businesses alone in our area including nature employers, like a Gertrude Hawk, Mrs.T's Portuguese and Yuengling Brewery.

There are dozens of plastics manufacturers as well.

Northeastern Pennsylvania's proximity to both New York and Philadelphia make it a prime distribution and transportation hub as well with easy access to airports interstates, and rail service.

The center for workforce information and analysis shows that in the second half of last year, Amazon Shui TJ Max's distribution center and Lowes were in the top 10 employers in Luzerne County alone.

Warehousing and storage businesses with a top employers in both Luzerne and Scoop Hill counties.

So what kind of skills do you need to work in manufacturing, distribution, and transportation.

As more processes become automated, employers in the manufacturing sector are looking for new hires with computer skills, critical thinking skills and the ability to adapt to new skills quickly.

Distribution hiring managers are looking for people who can manage their time well and work as part of a team.

To be successful in the transportation industry, You should be detail oriented and focused on safety.

For Keystone addition business I fall is our (soft music) - Now we just need to hear from you give us a call at +1 800-326-9842.

To learn more about the future of workforce development.

First, joining us here in the studio is Sandy and SELACO chairman of the board of US Hydration, Dr. Katie Leonard, President and CEO of Johnson College is also here.

On zoom, We have Jason Fink, the President and CEO of the Lycoming County Chamber of Commerce.

Welcome everyone.

Sandy, we're gonna start with you.

First, you know, I had the opportunity to meet you over a decade ago, and you're one of the entrepreneurs in this region that I think have had the greatest impact.

I just wanna thank you for your impact on this region and your philanthropic giving and ultimately for being a friend and a mentor.

So thank you.

- Thank you, Kris.

- So you're the chairman of US Hydrations.

Tell us more about US Hydrations.

- US Hydrations as a contract beverage packer.

We worked for national companies, Pepsi Dr. Pepper, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods.

We are certified in all 50 States.

So we do private label for all those companies.

So we're, quite proud of our operation.

- Yeah, and you know, in preparing for tonight, I was just so impressed with the size and the scale of your organization that you're involved from product management, all the way to distribution.

Are you guys hiring?

And what are some of the jobs that you might be looking to fill - We are hiring and skilled help is hard to find.

So we do a lot of training in house.

We take interns in every year, whether they stay with us or not, it really doesn't matter.

We just like to help young people out, but they usually stay.

And that helps us out, but we've grown dramatically.

And we had one building that was, you know about 275,000 square feet Kris, we, you know that became just a production facility.

We have another one that we just took over a while ago and that's gonna be over 200 and some thousand square feet.

And later this summer, we're gonna open up a distribution center so we can serve our customers at you know, vertical integration, take advantage of that and do that job for them.

And that's gonna to put us a little short of a million square feet that we're operating out of.

So we're trying to serve our customers do whatever they need to make their life easy take away their pain, whatever causes them pain.

We wanna make their life a little more enjoyable.

- You know, over the course your career, you've developed a reputation of being a great boss and a great employer.

You know, what are some of the ways that you go about recruiting talent and retaining talent here at US Hydrations?

- Well, years ago, you'd use the newspaper but those days are gone Kris, today, we're working through the internet and we're finding people that have skillsets that work for other companies and want a better opportunity.

And my HR director told me one time, why are you doing that?

Why don't you hire the unemployed?

I said, well, it really doesn't matter because when we hire that person that has those skillsets that we need, that opens up the door for a person that's unemployed.

So it doesn't really matter.

But it's important that we get people that are qualified.

Our business is a very technical business.

It's no longer filling bottles, it's all computer driven and all that.

And to excel in that area, you need the right people.

And we try to invest in technology, the latest technology to help them do their job.

And we empower our people.

We, let them do their job.

We don't, you know, stand over them every minute.

And we get the best out of them.

And they're stay with us a long time especially the higher skilled people, which is great.

- So you mentioned the internet but when you go about recruiting, do you partner with local colleges who provide sort of on the job training?

Do you offer apprenticeship programs or anything like that?

- In apprenticeship is of the programs we do every year, at least four or five.

And in all phases, whether it's in the accounting area, whether it's in the lab area, where they're working with the technicians out on the floor to improve productivity and all that.

So we hired them for every section of their ability.

And I'll tell you that they're great people.

They bring new, fresh ideas to the table.

We love them.

And we've had a lot of fun with the interns.

- Briefly when before we went live, you were telling me about this mural and your granddaughter, I guess that was.

- Yeah my granddaughter.

- Or was that a kind of internship?

- Actually she says, "Papa, can I do it an intern at your company"?

And I said "sure Jolie had no problem".

And she came up and what we wanna do is we wanted to honor our employees for their dedication and their link to service and all that.

And there's a long hallway where the dining room is and it's about 60 feet long.

And one wall has the dining room with the windows.

The other side is just a plain wall.

And we thought that was a good place to do it because they come in to work there every day and they see that wall.

And anyway, she went out and talked to each one of them and spent a whole about 10, 12 weeks in the summer there and talk to all of them and got all these notes and brought them back and then worked with our marketing company to put it all together.

And the owner of the marketing company came to me and said Sandy says, "where did you find Julia?"

I said, "why?"

He says, "she's the brightest girl I ever saw."

He says, "I've been doing this all my life."

He says, "she's just tremendously bright."

I said, "she's my granddaughter."

He said, "wow."

He said, "I hope she comes with you."

Well, she's gonna come with us, but not in my company.

One of our sister companies.

- That's great.

The Insilico Family has such a great reputation as well.

Dr. Katie, how are you?

- Good, how are you?

- Excellent, tell us more about Johnson College.

- Sure, Johnson College is a two year technical college located in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

We were the only technical college in Northeastern, Pennsylvania.

So we fill a very specific niche in the region that is central, especially to the workforce.

We like to say that we're founded and grounded in industry.

We were founded by a wealthy coal bearing back in 1912 and that continues today in every single one of our 15 associate degree programs has a program advisory committee made up of professionals directly from those those fields.

- Tell us about some of the more in demand fields of study at Johnson.

- Sure, well everything that was mentioned at the start of the program, whether it's you know, manufacturing, logistics, transportation HVAC, electrical construction, and maintenance technology.

And I will say all of it.

And we hit upon this a little bit earlier.

All of this is grounded in electronics.

You know, it's not just sort of pulling a lever anymore.

It's not, you know, just, you know as simple as like picking up a ranch for a diesel truck you have to troubleshoot and know what's wrong and really critically think about how you're gonna fix that piece of equipment before you do it.

And a lot of that starts with electronics whether you're plugging in a computer or programming a robotic arm, it all comes down to electronics.

- Yeah, I'm gonna double click on that in just a minute but actually my question though, before we get there is, are there any in demand jobs that you're having trouble training the students fast enough to fulfill?

- Oh, I would say all of our programs.

I think, you know, one thing about COVID is that I believe it taught the world what we already knew which is every single one of our programs is connected to some type of essential business.

You take manufacturing, for example, you know people keep saying, you know when the manufacturing jobs returned to the United States while they're here and they're really good well paying jobs, and we have employers screaming for more Johnson College graduates, we really our challenge has been, how can we get our students to them fast enough?

So we've started early college programs in high school.

So students can start taking these technical courses in their senior year of high school and then only have another year or less when they come to Johnson College.

So they get into the workforce faster.

- You know, I think one of the realities of innovation is automation.

- Yes - And so, you know, one of the challenges I think, or opportunities, right?

I love to kind of redefine what some people see as obstacles as opportunities.

But you have a degree in advanced manufacturing technology.

- We do - And when I was researching it, I thought to myself, well maybe this is the step to help keep some of those jobs.

So can you tell us a little bit more about that program?

- Sure, so that program starts with the foundation of machining and then touches upon automation, programmable logic controls, which is very big in manufacturing, automation and robotics.

So it's a little bit of everything but you come out a well-rounded technician ready to enter the workforce qualified.

- So you also offer courses in logistics and supply chain management and also transportation.

How about a bit about those programs?

- Sure, so our transportation division consists of automotive technology, diesel truck technology and heavy equipment technology.

So the first year students share a lot of courses are vehicle maintenance repairs.

So they learn, know the basics again of the electronics how to troubleshoot problems.

And then from there, they're out in industry many times within their second semester, you know, doing their labs out in industry, getting that real world experience.

So they take the foundation of what they learned in semester one and start going into industry in semester two.

And again, these are highly skilled technicians, not just with technical skills, but also those soft skills too.

I think that has that's really, employers are putting a lot of emphasis on them more than ever before because someone can be a great technician but if they can't explain to the customer what's wrong with their vehicle or their truck or their piece of machinery, it will cost that customer sometimes more time and money.

And nobody wants that.

So we really emphasize the technical skills alongside the soft skills.

- Can you speak briefly to compensation?

You know, students come into Johnson College, they finished two years later, they go into careers.

Are they hourly jobs?

Are they high paying jobs?

Is it all over the place?

- You know, they are high paying jobs, you know entry level sometimes, you know, we have interns some HVAC and electrical and electronics interns that the just as an intern can make between 19 and $21 an hour.

And then oftentimes a majority of our students have jobs in their field of study before they even cross the stage at graduation.

So those hourly wages only go up from there and median salaries are, you know, 40, 45,000 and up some, if you're a really good technician, I mean, sky's the limit for what you can make, especially in this area - As it relates to tuition.

Is it often that there's employer sponsored tuition?

And also if you could briefly just talk about apprenticeships as well.

- Sure, so a couple of things, when we ask students, like what do they look for in an employer?

Oftentimes the employer thinks it's going to be you know, the hourly wage.

But when we ask students a truly two things they wanna be able to apply their skills right away and they want the employer to keep investing in them.

So, you know, you mentioned, you know, tuition something that a lot of our employers have started doing is that in addition to their hourly wage to keep a really good employee, if they pass their you know, whether it's 30, 60, 90 day review they'll give the student an additional stipend, separate from their paycheck that will go to help pay down their loan.

So those are some of the creative things that employers are trying to do to show employees that they are still investing in them.

- Excellent, Thank you, Dr. Katie.

Jason, it's really great to have you on the show tonight as President and CEO of the Lycoming County Chamber of Commerce.

Would you tell us a little bit more about the chamber?

- Well, we are a County wide organization.

We deal with not only the traditional main street types of businesses, but we are a full service chamber of commerce.

We work with the travel and tourism industry we operate the visitors Bureau.

The other aspect of activities we handle the industrial properties corporation for the County as well and dealing with a lot of industrial development activities working with existing manufacturers, as well as working to bring in new industry to the community and I will tell you it's been busy on both fronts.

- Well, that's actually encouraging and actually is my next question.

What is the economic outlook in Lycoming County?

- Well, I can tell you, we are in the process right now of preparing for a job fair at the end of this month because we have a number of industries that are very very sorely needing to fill positions.

And it a number of the businesses that you referenced at the beginning of this set, the plastics manufacturing, the food industries they're all in need of employees right now they have number of positions available.

One company that we're working with right now is in the plastic pipe business advanced drainage systems, ADS they're in the process right now of trying to fill somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 to 40 positions.

They've shared with us that they've got at the plant here in Lycoming County the largest order that was ever placed within the company.

And from that aspect of it, they're in a need right now of hiring quickly skills are important for a number of these positions as well.

But the jobs are here.

I can tell you that.

- Yeah, that's super encouraging.

And a couple que, can you name a couple of the top employers that are currently hiring in Lycoming County?

- Yes, well, ADS is one of them, West Pharmaceuticals and other one and West has been in the news here lately because they are actually key within the COVID vaccine process.

They make the rubber stopper that goes into a variety of different vaccines that are being manufactured right now.

And so they are running as quickly as they can.

And they're also in the process of hiring and expanding there's a future expansion of the facility that they're looking at doing here.

In addition to that we've got a few food manufacturers as well.

Kellogg's, Leclerc Foods, they're in the process of hiring as well.

So we've got a number of major manufacturers with household names that are out there.

We even have one net that we thought we were gonna be losing when they announced that they were gonna be closing back in September of last year was shot back corporation.

Fortunately, we were able to see a buyer come in and they're in the process right now of hiring back a number of the employees that were let go when they did the announcement of the closing.

Right now, there are about 225 to 250 employees.

And their goal is to be within the next year to year and a half back to where they were with over 400 employees.

- Jason, that's really also super encouraging.

But workforce development, economic development is difficult, right?

We're sort of still in a global pandemic.

I think well the economy appears encouraged there's still a road ahead.

So my question for you is workforce development at Lycoming County Chamber of Commerce, how do you guys go about bringing together partner institutions, universities, colleges like Johnson, private industry, and then employees, right, employees or students as well because I know when I was talking to Sandy earlier we talked about this concept of the importance of internships.

So how are you guys making that work through partnerships?

- Well, it was very interesting to hear Dr. Katie talk, because a lot of what she was talking about it happens here in our backyard as well with the Pennsylvania College of Technology.

Penn College has a number of different programs, welding plastics.

They have a very top notch plastics program.

They have the Plastics Innovation Resource Center, which not only helps a number of the local plastics manufacturers be able to tap into the local, skilled labor market, but they are renowned nationwide and also throughout the world.

And they have people who come in to work on equipment test out equipment, test out processes to be able to learn how to best improve.

The nice thing about the whole setup that we have with them is we it gives the students who are going through that program the opportunity to work with a variety of industries and also see who they might wanna go to work for.

Because I will tell you placement rates are very high within that program.

Any student who graduates from that program it has at least three job opportunities to be able to pick from before they even get their degree.

- That's exceptional.

Sandy, we're gonna come back to you.

- Sure.

- So one of the things I wanted to chat with you more about is the transportation piece of your business.

And so are you manufacturing and then people are coming to pick it up at one of the bays or do you actually have a transportation portion of your company?

- We have a logistics department that handles transportation for all our accounts, whether they contract with their own people, but all the scheduling and all the pickup times and all that are all arranged with our company.

That makes their life a little easy.

But we are opening up a bigger center we're gonna expand that because we have more customers to keep wanting us to handle that they like we do, but you run out of space.

So we are gonna expand that, we're opening up a 400,000 square foot distribution center later this year.

So we're trying to do what the customer needs to do.

And we like I said we take away all their concerns about on-time deliveries.

We manufacture, we shuttle the product to finished product to the DC that is gonna ship it out, handle all of the calls with the haulers and all that.

It really makes their life easy.

- Great.

Dr. Katie, tell me more about Tech Talk which is your new podcast series at Johnson College.

- Sure, yeah, so a Tech Talk is something I started when I became president and CEO.

We have a couple under our belt now, but really gets to showcase what, like all the great things that go on in Northeastern Pennsylvania, you know I'm not from the area.

And I just, you know, love the area so much and love to feature the people and the companies that make up this region.

So, you know, we talk about everything about where is the job demand.

We have people from industry in to talk, you know specifically dive deeper into topics like this and where is the demand and how we can get more skilled workers into the workforce.

And also just, you know, community people that are doing really great things to help build our community.

- Yeah, that's the interesting thing about podcasting these days is that you have the opportunity to bring in real-world experiences which could then help the students inspire them 'cause many of them might come in in a general subject and end up taking on a different interest because of some dynamic guests that you have on your show.

- Yeah, so I usually ask that question of my guests.

And usually even if I don't ask it the topic that does come up which I spoke a little bit about earlier is soft skills.

So again, I can walk into one of the labs at Johnson College and talk about soft skills until I'm blue in the face.

But if they hear me talking to a prospective employer of theirs and they're talking and emphasizing soft skills that the student is going to perk up and listen.

- Thank you.

Jason, tell us more about Leadership Lycoming.

- Oh yes, that's a actually today was a Leadership Lycoming day as a matter of fact and from that aspect of it's a program that gives local businesses the opportunity to identify key personnel within their companies to be able to give them an opportunity to be in a program that introduces them to a wide variety of programming here in Lycoming County.

So that they have a better understanding of what makes Lycoming County work.

They have an opportunity to meet with law enforcement.

Today was law enforcement day for example, they have the ability to inter act with healthcare professionals on another day.

Another will be social service days.

It gives them an opportunity to be able to see a network with officials here in our community to really give them the opportunity to invest and see how we can grow Lycoming County and how they can play a role in being to make all that happen.

- That's a super, super important.

Some of the programs that I've been exposed to in Loser and Lycoming County are similar.

And I'll tell you some of the best leaders in our community have gone through those programs.

So it really speaks to the impact that a chamber of commerce can have in helping develop leadership.

I actually have a question here from let's see here from social media, the question is in which careers or fields do you find the most upward mobility at companies in Northeastern and Central PA?

So I'm going to have you Dr. Katie, answer that one real quick if you can.

Which fields do you find have the most upward mobility?

- So I would say many of the technical programs but also like the, the health science programs as well.

Again, you start entry level you get those years of, you know, the skills and then the real world job experience at, under your belt.

And you can move up rather quickly.

I look at, you know, HVAC, you know, HVAC technicians going from intern to technician, one to to technician to on a very short span, electrical construction and maintenance technology, individuals going into the carpentry fields.

So really there is a lot of upward mobility in technical careers.

- That's great.

Is there any final, anything you wanna share about Johnson College as we have about a minute left or so?

- Sure, so, you know earlier you mentioned about apprenticeships and we have our industry immersion program where which is like an apprenticeship and students are working alongside skill technicians at a business.

So it really gives them that real world experience.

And if, you know, if they don't like the company or the company, doesn't like them, it's not a good match, they can actually go and get experience at another company.

And then that company can get another student.

- And Sandy the last question is for you.

- True - Anything else about US Hydrations for our viewers who would love to be employed by one of your amazing companies.

Anything about US Hydrations that stands out about how you take care of your employees?

- Well, we empower them.

We give them a lot of room to do their job.

We give them the best technology.

One thing they like about us is we recycle any waste that we have.

We are putting in blow molders to reduce the carbon footprint for hauling bottles, to our plant by 90% which is huge.

And that will happen over the next 12 months.

So they like their work.

We're concerned about the environment and they liked it.

We keep improving technology to make us competitive in the marketplace.

So we don't lose our great customers.

We retain them.

- Yeah the investments you've made Sandy into all your businesses is just so incredible.

I'd like to thank our panelists for participating and thank you for joining us.

For more information on this topic, please visit wvia.org.

And remember you can re watch this episode or any previous episode on demand, any time online or on the WVIA App.

For Keystone edition, I'm Kris Jones.

Thank you for watching.

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