Going to a Huntsville technology job in the aerospace industry from Walmart or a deep-sea charter boat may seem a leap, but it’s happening in Huntsville as tech companies perfect onsite training to attract employees and keep and promote the ones they have.
Often those jobs involve state of the art technology, but companies have learned how to make it accessible. One of the top practitioners at that is also one of the area’s biggest employers – Mazda-Toyota Manufacturing. It sounded good enough to try and six years later Hughey is a senior technician installing robotic systems for customers and supporting buyers at their facilities.
Orange Beach native Drew Murray was another Aerobotix hire moving from his family charter fishing boat to the company. It was a great job through college and high school but “very seasonable,” Murray said. Aerobotix Vice President Chris Kolb said his company isn’t the only one being creative with employees in the Huntsville metro job market. Other companies also look in high schools “for those type of kids that want to apply themselves in that senior year,” he said.
The other job market practice that “pairs with that and maybe has been even is the intentional desire to train the existing workforce,” Ferguson said. “If you look at someone who may have been working in a production role, now you’re looking at other opportunities to train that person, so they maintain in the company and have that growth potential. That has been a been focus area.”