Despite steady cutbacks in the ranks of manufacturing workers in Connecticut, there is an unmet need for two crucial cogs in the factory work force: tool designers and tool makers.
In past years, tool designers — who draw blueprints for the machines that make parts for airplanes, cars and spaceships — grew out of the ranks of machinists and skilled tool makers. But today, the computerized trade requires separate, complex training, and the switch from one job to the other is less common.
"I could use a half dozen very easily," said Ray Forgione, president of B&F Design of Newington, who employs about 35 tool designers. "There just aren't any out there."
Only two tool designers work at Flanagan Industries in Glastonbury, and owner Kenneth Flanagan said he could use more college graduates with an engineering background. "It's slim pickings," he said. "We have a shortfall."The situation has radically changed since the end of the 19th century, when Hartford's manufacturing was dominant and still rising. Sam Colt's gun factory required highly skilled tool designers and tool makers, and trained workers flocked to the city, where they found work not only at Colt, but at Pratt & Whitney Machine Tool Co., and other manufacturing firms.
By the 1940s, regular manufacturing companies no longer wanted to invest in the costly business of designing their own tool-making machines, but the machine-making industry still thrived here. By the 1950s and '60s, competition from Japan began to pressure the machine tool business in greater Hartford, which has now dwindled.
In recent years, there has been a growth of manufacturing in the field of medical devices and in aerospace technology, but not enough skilled workers to design and make the necessary tools.
"Younger workers have assumed that investing [in manufacturing jobs] makes no sense, because no jobs are there," said Andrew Walsh, a Trinity College faculty member who is an expert on Hartford history. "That becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."
Forgione said he hires untrained high-school graduates as designers at $25 to $30 an hour, but has had trouble finding and keeping the right people. He realizes little value while they learn to use the computer-assisted design programs.
"It will take three to six months until you start making money, and then someone comes along and pirates them," he said.
Brian MacDonald, who has worked as a tool designer at B&F for nearly 10 years, says the economics of manufacturing are partly to blame. "The skill set is huge. The pay grade is comparable to bottom-end auto mechanic," he said. "Where's the incentive?"
He said that his 25 years of experience as a tool designer has created built-in job security. "Anyplace manufacturing still takes place, I'll still have a job."
Forgione would like the state to invest in training tool designers, the way it helps train tool makers in programs such as the precision manufacturing program at Asnuntuck Community College in Enfield. There, 120 students take a one-year certificate course that involves a semester's internship at a machine shop, where they apply the skills they have been learning.
The program turns out qualified machinists whose graduates have no problem finding jobs. "The important thing is, they have the skills," said Asnuntuck President Martha McLeod.