Blue-collar workers latest group to be sucked into the Web

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June 6, 2000
Web posted at: 10:29 a.m. EDT (1429 GMT)

by Joel Obermayer

(IDG) -- Greg Hosford's afternoon job is a quick one. He sticks his head under a car's dashboard, wielding an electric screwdriver to loosen the stereo housing. "This should be pretty easy," he says, yanking off a plastic faceplate. Thirty minutes later he's installed a new unit.

Then it's back to studying. He's always studying. In the garage where he works installing car stereos for a small audio equipment chain, he's got a backpack holding 30 pounds of computer manuals and textbooks.

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This self-professed grease monkey is looking to trade his socket wrenches for a spot in the information economy. During the last 16 months, the 33-year-old Hosford has spent most of his weekday evenings in technology classes at ECPI Technical College -- a for-profit training company based in Virginia Beach, Va., with an office in Raleigh. Instead of tinkering with fuses and dash-mounted amplifiers, he plans to raise his wages by maintaining routers and networks.

With unemployment at a 30-year low, technology companies are clamoring for new employees. The computer geeks have long since been picked over. Graduates from four-year colleges can't fill all the openings. And opportunities are popping up for men and women like Hosford -- people from blue-collar backgrounds who are taking advantage of the tight tech labor market and switching careers. Indeed, the Information Technology Training Association, a trade group based in Austin, Texas, reports that these career-changers have helped drive the increasing demand for tech education over the last 18 months. "Enrollment is up in these programs across the country, and it's mainly from people in their mid-30s and older who see the economic benefits that IT jobs can bring," says Rachel Cheeseman, ITTA executive director.

A study conducted by the Information Technology Association of America last winter concluded that more than half of the 1.6 million new jobs created this year by technology companies and other businesses will go unfilled. The ITAA, an Arlington, Va.-based trade group, also says 327,000 of these open positions will be tech-support jobs. Their salaries are often higher than those for blue-collar workers. For example, the average income for industrial machine operators was about $12 an hour vs. about $14 for computer operators, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics' 1997 national compensation survey. Slightly more senior computer operators make $20 an hour. The wage gap rapidly widens as those with greater chances for advancement move up the employment ladder.

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Hosford's class at ECPI (which stands for Electronics, Programming, Computers or Information Systems) has people from different walks of life: a police detective, an automobile tire installer and a mother of three who works as a low-level administrator in a local school system. All pay $10,000 to $14,000 for the program and attend five hours of class, most weekday nights in intensive seven-week units. Curriculum courses teach practical applications in subjects from networking and Web page design to computer repair. Around a quarter of those who start the classes drop out. But 94 percent of the graduates of Hosford's program get jobs, typically entry-level positions such as customer relations, maintenance and administration. With their newly acquired skills, many are able to move up quickly.

"It's a year or two of my life to better my life," says Hosford, who grew up in a working-class part of Midland, Mich. "When you're paying a lot of money, you want to get everything you can out of it."

Similar programs exist in every major job market in the country -- in community colleges, vocational schools and government-sponsored training programs. Still, private, for-profit educational institutions are the center of most of the action. Some fly-by-night outfits aggressively market themselves on television, but many of the biggest technical colleges -- like DeVry Institute and ECPI -- develop curricula that give graduates a clear technical foundation. Indeed, the ITTA trade group has seen its membership of technology schools grow by about 40 percent over the last year. And ITT, a school better known for training in air conditioning and electronics, has added an information technology specialization. The program started with about 30 students at one campus in 1998 and now enrolls 1,600 at 50 campuses, making it the fastest rollout in the company's history.

But those who complete technology training programs may have little in common with the kids who spent their high-school days learning C++. Hosford and his fellow students often are tinkerers; most have had little computer exposure, but once they got a taste it wasn't hard to get hooked.

Peter Leyden, a futurist for Global Business Network, an Emeryville, Calif.-based think tank, says those who succeed see their interest building with each new thing they learn. "Once they interact with the technology, it all starts to flow," he adds. "The enthusiasm starts and keeps growing as they get more exposure."

Take 35-year-old Tony Mele, who built hot rods growing up in New Britain, Conn., and spent nine years fixing jets for the U.S. Marine Corps. As a sergeant with a branch of North Carolina's state police, he found himself drawn to computer-related investigations. "At first I just wanted to know what made them tick ... just like when I've taken apart surveillance cameras," says Mele. "I took apart a computer and built one myself. Pretty soon I became the guy everyone came to with questions."

These workers also are discovering that age need not be a deterrent in making a career switch, especially in the current employment environment. Leonard Watkins, 59, worked for 35 years stringing cables for Ameritech, the Midwestern phone company. He took early retirement but found himself bored. After enrolling in classes sponsored by Focus Hope, a Detroit-based economic development group that runs retraining programs for industrial workers, Watkins got a job with Hewlett-Packard maintaining routers the company runs for Ford.

"I'm not really a youngster, and here I am starting all over again," Watkins says. "I was determined I wasn't going to be left behind, so I kept on trucking. I don't think this field is just for nerds or people with tattoos and rings in their noses."

Watkins and others are looking to tech occupations to replace the sense of security and wages they once got from manufacturing and trade jobs. While there may be no more 30-year careers at a single company, those with tech skills get higher pay and more mobility.

But they face a struggle before they can get that kind of flexibility. A look around the garage where Hosford works shows how much energy he's put into his new path. In one corner gathering dust are three custom-drilled bowling balls he used when he had time for league play. "I've stopped all my hobbies," says Hosford. "I've dropped everything but riding my dirt bike on Sundays."

With graduation in sight, he's hoping for a job with a company that builds corporate networks. But like many innovators who have taken a more direct path to technology, Hosford's ultimate plan is to go out on his own. He figures he'll be able to install business networks from scratch. There are plenty of small companies that would be interested, he adds.

"I already know the first three people I'd want to hire," says Hosford one afternoon as he wraps up his homework. "They're in my class."

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