Coreen Blaylock on Making Apprenticeship Simpler

Intro

Welcome to the latest episode of "Making Apprenticeship Simpler" interviews. In this interview, Patrick Cushing, CEO of WorkHands, interviews Coreen Blaylock of IPC Internatinoal.

Corey, as the Director of Workforce Partnerships at IPC International, shares her unique insights and experiences. From managing apprenticeship programs at Lockheed Martin to simplifying the documentation process with Work Hands, Corey discusses the challenges and solutions in the apprenticeship landscape. We'll also explore the complexities of working across different state regulations and how a standardized protocol could revolutionize the system. Join us as we uncover the intricacies of building a skilled workforce in electronics manufacturing!

Highlights

Here's a series of key insights from the talk:

• Introduction to Coreen Blaylock, Director of Workforce Partnerships at IPC International

• Previous role at Lockheed Martin managing an apprenticeship program

• IPC International is an International Trade Association for Electronics Manufacturers with over 3200 members worldwide

• Occupational Standards for Electronics Assemblers, PCB Fabricators, PCB Design Engineers

• IPC Apprenticeship Program Launch in Q1 of 2024

• To simplify, there needs to be more plug and play, ease of implementation in apprenticeships

• State level compliance is challenging with OA, SAA states, and California's dual status

• Difficulty in becoming an eligible training provider (ETP) with varying state requirements and guidelines

• Differences in ETPL, education agency lists, and certification lists

• Need to standardize protocol and unify processes across states to increase employer willingness to adopt apprenticeship programs

Full Transcript

Patrick Cushing:

Hey, Corey. So can you give us a quick intro to yourself and to IPC and its role in apprenticeship?

Coreen Blaylock:

Sure. My name is Corey Blaylock. I am director of workforce partnerships with IPC International, which is the international trade association for Electronics Manufacturers. We have over 3200 members worldwide, and IPC recently celebrated our with occupational standards for three occupations. We have electronics assemblers, PCB fabricators, and newly approved PCB design engineers.

Patrick Cushing:

Perfect. And how long have you all been at it? So I cut off a little bit. So I'm not sure we cut all of it.

Coreen Blaylock:

Okay. So we actually celebrated the official signing of our national program standards in November of 2023. So we officially started the ball rolling in q one of 2024 with working with employers and registering apprentices.

Patrick Cushing:

Perfect. So you have a fresh mind coming into this. So the number one question is, what do you think can be done to make apprenticeship simpler?

Coreen Blaylock:

So I actually have a couple of perspectives, because I did manage an apprenticeship program at my previous employer with Lockheed Martin. So I'm not 100% fresh, but I do have that perspective and things that I knew that I wanted to improve on for other employers to be able to utilize and make it sort of a plug and play, easy, button type operation that any employer, any size, could implement to train their workforce. And I think that one of the biggest pain points which I addressed with utilizing work hands, was the documentation piece and keeping everything organized in one place. So I wasn't having to create an excel spreadsheet, I wasn't having to maintain that myself. I wasn't having to create a sharepoint site that I had to build from the ground up. This was very easy to implement as far as the documentation goes of tracking and managing apprenticeships. And that sort of feeds into the compliance standpoint for registered apprenticeship programs that have national program standards and are not just at the state level, utilizing all of the information that we're able to gather in work hands and then translating it to what we can implement in rapids to make it easier for us as the program sponsor to maintain compliance was really important to me because I want to keep our program in good standing and I want it to be easily adoptable and as to be able to work with any state.

Patrick Cushing:

Well, we'll take that one. But so that this isn't just a sales call for us, I would love to know, is there anything beyond working like, anything in, just like the apprenticeship system, recruiting, funding, anything like that, do you think could be made simpler as well?

Coreen Blaylock:

Yes. So working with multiple states and multiple employers across the US is a little difficult and challenging simply because every state has its own rules and guidelines. And with the bifurcated system having OA states and SAA states, and then we have California that is both an OA and SAA states, knowing those rules, what they are, how to color between the lines and make sure that you are providing exactly what each state needs without having to rewrite your occupation or program standards to be included or adopted by states that are SAA states, because that would be a logistical nightmare of having to manage 50 different programs at different state levels. So I think having a system that is uniform across the board would at least help programs that have national program standards.

Patrick Cushing:

Sure, it's a great perspective. Do you have a specific example of where you've run into issues with that so far.

Coreen Blaylock:

Trying to be added to eligible training provider lists at the state level have been, I don't want to say seamless, but making the request. Some of the states have different requirements and guidelines that have to be provided for and so having the addition to that list is important. But then there's, once you pull on that string from the yarn ball, you sort of go down a whole another rabbit hole of what other lists are in every state. Is the ETPL in alignment with what the education agency at the state level has certification lists that school districts utilized for CTE programs? Are they all in alignment or are they all separate lists? What does a state approve as a certification or a credential, and what is their definition of that? So that you can be added to those various lists so that programs can again be implemented not only for employers, but also to work within the workforce ecosystem, to develop the pipelines for those employers at a high school and community.

Patrick Cushing:

College level, that's fantastic. I mean, not fantastic. Deal with it. The fantastic example of what it looks like to register as a training provider across multiple places. If you had a magic wand and can fix that problem, what do you think it would look like?

Coreen Blaylock:

I don't know if I could even answer that in 15 minutes. I think that just having a standardized protocol and process that every state inherently abides by, so that it would make it easier for both employers that have production facilities across the US, as well as sponsors who may have ability to work with employers across the US, easy. It would make the system easier to work within so that more people would want to do it. When people start peeling back the layers of the onion and they see that, oh, I have to know how to do this, and at some point they're going to get to a layer that seems too hard and give up.