EMC turns to community colleges to boost
skills
Training programs can pinpoint needs of industry
By Kimberly Blanton, Globe Staff, 04/25/99
usan Feng came to this country from China in 1993 with a bachelor's
degree in engineering from the Xian Highway Institute and quickly
earned an MBA from a small Massachusetts college.
Yet the well-educated Feng was unable to find a job, in part, she believes,
because of cultural and language gaps she has since overcome.
Feng made the rounds of Framingham restaurants, working as a waitress
and struggling, alongside her husband, to provide security for their daughter.
Then she learned about EMC Corp.'s new training program at a nearby
community college. Feng is among the first 35 graduates of the program
hired by EMC to work in its gleaming new manufacturing plant in Franklin.
''It is a very good opportunity for me,'' Feng said in a recent interview during
a break in her 7 a.m.-3:30 p.m. shift. ''I can say it's saved my life.''
EMC's educational programs, sponsored jointly with two community
colleges, are among several in Massachusetts aimed at training - or retraining
- workers for the needs of a booming high-tech industry. Among the most
successful in the state is the Software Council Fellowship Program, which
has placed 450 people in jobs in the software and Internet fields.
''The software industry is the hottest industry going,'' said Mary Cahill, who
runs the software fellowship. People come to the program with ''good skills,''
she said, and ''we're helping software companies to understand how they
can be useful to them.''
Massachusetts' economic boom has gone on so long that even manufacturing
employees, once in abundant supply, are needed at companies such as
EMC.
The state's jobless rate reached a low of 2.8 percent in March - only five
years after the end of a painful era of layoffs that resulted in unemployment
for some 45,000 former workers at Digital Equipment Corp., Raytheon Co.,
General Electric Co., and other big companies.
EMC, which touts itself as the state's biggest computer company, employs
1,400 at its Franklin plant, where the company's computer storage systems
are made. EMC expects to hire 1,200 more in the state this year.
To meet its high demand, EMC last year reached out to Massachusetts Bay
Community College, which Feng attended, and to the New England Institute
of Technology in West Warwick, R.I. The programs were designed to
create educational training and a pipeline for prospective employees from a
pool of older workers seeking to be retrained and younger high school or
college graduates starting their careers.
''I needed to hire quickly a well-informed, well-educated work force to join
this company as it grows to a $10 billion company,'' said John Miller,
EMC's employment manager for US manufacturing and ''godfather'' of the
program.
Under the program, EMC selects the best people from among a group of
students who pass a test taken during their preparation for admission.
After completing 12 months of courses at the community college - everything
from programming and electronics to math and English - they graduate with
an associate's degree. Select students are then hired by EMC for full-time,
entry-level positions as production technicians. And EMC reimburses its
employees for their college tuition.
Kenneth John is a divorce-lawyer-turned-tech worker. He had practiced
law for 16 years in Lowell but has tinkered with computers ever since buying
one made by a toy company in the early 1980s.
But he never thought computers would be the basis of a mid-life career
change. At first, he thought about forensic medicine, then got ''sidetracked''
to a semiconductor training program. After attending an open house at
Massachusetts Bay Community College, he signed up in January for courses
to prepare for a job at EMC.
''I was looking for a new challenge,'' John said, explaining why he left the
legal field. And computers, he said, were ''something I was interested in
anyway.''
John and Feng work side by side, on the same shift, in EMC's environmental
stress screening group. There, they test circuit boards at various
temperatures and voltages before the boards are installed into computer
storage systems. In addition, John works on boards that provide back-up
power for EMC's systems.
John, who has a teenaged daughter and whose wife is a teacher, wouldn't
comment on whether EMC pays better than the legal field. ''Suffice it to say
I'm satisifed with what I'm being paid here, and I like the job very much.''
Mass Bay College has some 5,000 students on two campuses in Wellesley
Hills and Framingham. EMC's training program is part of a larger initiative by
the college to ''get the training to the people,'' said Pam Eddinger, executive
director for college relations.
''EMC gets its workers,'' she said, ''and we get to fulfill our mission. So it's a
win-win.''
For more information visit the Massachusetts Bay Community College
Web site at www.mbcc.mass.edu, and the software fellowship at
www.swfellowship.org.
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