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U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez had his mouth wide open when he learned Shane Harmon, the 23-year-old graduated apprentice who had just handed him an air bag cover fresh from a mold press, already owns a home.

Perez and U.S. Reps. Virginia Foxx and Robert Pittenger on Tuesday toured Mooresville-based Ameritech Die and Mold Inc., one of the five partners of Apprenticeship 2000, to see the Charlotte-area program in action. He talked with business owners, educators, apprentices and parents about the alternative to college education.

“Apprenticeship is the other college, except without the debt,” Perez said. “Apprenticeship 2000 is a model for the nation.”

Businesses invest in their future workforce through the four-year-program, and apprentices, selected mainly from high school juniors and seniors, get paid to go to school and gain on-site training while working in technical trades including a type of engineering called mechatronics, tool and die, and machining.

That solves the problem for many businesses that go through the “painful” recruitment process and at the end of it find a skill gap between the 45-year-olds and the 20-year-olds, said Robert Shook, manager of workforce development at another partner of Apprenticeship 2000, Chiron America Inc., a machining company in Charlotte.

Jonie Martin, 17, is now going through a six-week internship before starting the apprenticeship. She said the biggest comfort for her is the security of knowing she will have a job doing something she likes.

“I really like knowing I’ve got no college debt, but I’ve got my degree ... I’ve got my career, and something stable,” she said.

Some parents look down on apprenticeships, said Cheryl Seeley, career development counselor at Lake Norman School. Her son, Clint Seeley, is in his first year of apprenticeship at Ameritech.

As a parent, though, Seeley said the decision to encourage Clint to enroll the program – getting paid to work and learn, having a job lined up after four years and earning a good salary – was “a no-brainer.”

Adjusting attitudes toward apprenticeship as “a viable pathway” is one of the big challenges for the Department of Labor, Perez said.

“We’ve got to move forward as a nation; that’s why the president has set forth a very ambitious goal of doubling the number of registered apprenticeships in the country,” Perez said.

There are 31 registered apprenticeship programs in Mecklenburg county, in construction, government, transportation and utilities. North Carolina has 3,244 apprenticeship programs in total, according to the state Department of Commerce.

In the Charlotte area, Apprenticeship 2000 selects 10 to 15 high school juniors and seniors a year for on-site training at its partner companies.

Participants take classes at Central Piedmont Community College one day each week, work four days and get paid. They accumulate 8,000 hours of training in four years and earn an associate degree in Mechatronics Engineering and a Journeyman’s Certificate from the N.C. Department of Commerce upon graduation. Graduates earn a minimum of $34,000 a year, the program’s website says.

Partner companies include Chiron America Inc. and Pfaff-Molds LP in Charlotte, Ameritech in Mooresville and two others in the region. Some of those companies offer the program to the current workforce in addition to high school students.

Ameritech is a Mooresville-based mold manufacturer founded in 1985. Now with about 24 employees, it makes a steady annual revenue of about $5 million, owner Steve Rotman said. The company branched out in 2004 to Ormond Beach, Fla., as Ameritech Die and Mold South.

Harmon hopes more people consider apprenticeship as an option.

“I am glad to share my knowledge and express how apprenticeship has helped me and how the apprenticeship can help other future workers,” Harmon, the graduated apprentice, said.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/article25928539.html