News : An Ideal Collaboration: Providing Welding Internship Experiences

October is National Advanced Manufacturing Month, and in honor of this celebration we're featuring a recent success story with one of our great manufacturing partners. Ideal Industries in Vinton is a full-service manufacturer of fabricated metal products and has been a Workplace Learning Connection partner for almost a decade.

Last spring, Ideal Industries collaborated with WLC and Vinton-Shellsburg High School to create an enhanced internship experience for three Vinton-Shellsburg seniors. The students completed a 40-hour internship with Ideal, coordinated by WLC, in conjunction with an online welding curriculum that was coordinated by Louise Fleming, teaching and learning facilitator at VSHS. The goal of the partnership was to give these students the opportunity for a hands-on, real-world welding experience.

"This collaboration was a great experience all the way around - having the opportunity to engage and connect with the future workforce," says Kayleen Schott, controller at Ideal Industries. "The experience helped us develop our training programs, understand where we were at with our training, and [determine] where we needed to be. It was also a great opportunity for our production team to engage with that next generation of workers."

All three students felt they got a lot from the experience, and two even stayed on to work full time over the summer. "We enjoyed being able to be a part of these students' career exploration experiences," says Kayleen. "It is a win-win experience. They gained some great takeaway skills from the time they spent with us and we got some great production work. It is sad to see these students go, but it is really neat to see them grow."