Top: At the new Makerspace, Matthew Brailsford
works a lathe while Tyler O’Baker observes. Both
Brailsford and O’Baker are current Machining
students at ACM.
Below: Lane Tephabock, a former Verso employee
who is retraining for a new career, receives
instructions from Garrett Kessner. Kessner, a
program alum, returned as a Class Assistant to
help others train and pursue their credentials.
We’re especially
proud to
be helping
almost 70
individuals who
unexpectedly
lost their jobs
during Luke
Mill’s closing.
Spring 2020 \ ACCESS ACM 12
more participants. The Makerspace,
part training and education facility
and part business incubator, offers
our students a new environment for
learning and thriving.
We currently occupy nearly 10,000
square feet of the building which
has dramatically increased and even
doubled the number of participants
we can train at one time. Participants
are not forced to share machines as
often, and we have cut or eliminated
program waitlists. We added more
state-of-the-art training equipment,
thanks to funding from the County’s
Appalachian Regional Commission
(ARC) grant and a generous company
donation, and new ventilation
systems for our increased number
of welding bays. ACM now offers
evening and day courses for
programs, based on participant
demand, at the Makerspace.
Our CTE programs demonstrate
high placement rates in that our
program participants typically
find immediate
employment after
training. Through
our follow up with
former participants
(required through a
Department of Labor
grant), we find stable
employment rates
of 90 to 100% for
our 2017 and 2018
program participants.
At the present,
we’re especially
proud to be helping
almost 70 individuals
who unexpectedly
lost their jobs during
Luke Mill’s closing.
As participants in either Machine
Tool Technology program or a
customized Industrial Technology
program, they are part of a yearlong
retraining program that offers
credentials in a variety of in-demand
skills. CTE can’t replace what these
individuals lost, but it can offer a
new path for employment.
Please take the
opportunity to see
for yourself the
possibilities that the
Western Maryland
Works Makerspace can
offer our community.
Contact Matthew
Shipway, Workforce
Development
Specialist within the
Allegany County
Government Office of
Community Services,
at 301-986-9527 for
more information or to
set up a facility tour.
*Article first appeared
as a reader commentary
on February 17, 2020 in the Cumberland
Times-News. It has been edited for
length.