County may promote work for apprentices

Helping to widen Mullen Road in front of Timberline High School is the best job Josh Kloempken says he's ever had.

"There's this sense of gratification that I'm creating something," said Kloempken, 27, who drives heavy-equipment trucks as an apprentice operating engineer with Rognlins Inc. construction company of Aberdeen. "After this is done, I'll be able to come back and say, 'This is a road I helped build.' "

Kloempken, a former Army National Guard soldier who lives in Central Park in Grays Harbor County, is one of hundreds of South Sound apprentices who could be recruited for Thurston County construction jobs if a new law is adopted by county commissioners this month.

The commissioners will conduct a public hearing tonight on a plan to require that 10 percent of labor for any county contract of more than $1 million be done by apprentices.

If adopted, the county would add the requirement to its May 22 bid announcement for the $35 million county jail in Tumwater. The 320-bed Accountability and Restitution Center is targeted to open in 2010, although officials say they are considering a longer build-out to add more beds.

Commissioner Bob Macleod is pushing the apprenticeship effort, saying it will offer more job opportunities for youths and young adults. Commissioners Diane Oberquell and Cathy Wolfe said they are considering it, but have asked for documentation on other counties that have run successful apprenticeship efforts.

Sue Bogni, Macleod's aide, said public apprenticeship programs are operating in King and Snohomish counties and in Olympia.

The Thurston County apprenticeship program would parallel a statewide effort overseen by the state Department of Licenses and Inspections. Construction trade unions statewide administer their own apprenticeship programs under Department of Labor and Industries certification guidelines.

"The apprenticeships allow more young people to enter the work force and work toward journeyman certification, while keeping the costs down for consumers," said Phil Dines, business manager for the Lacey-based United Association Local 26 Plumbers and Pipefitters Union.

Plumbers and pipefitters are among 15 affiliated crafts that belong to the Washington State Building and Construction Trades Council AFL-CIO. Local 26 covers about 2,500 plumbers and pipefitters and 400 apprentices in 13 Western Washington counties, said Tim Downes, business agent.

"We're able to pass on our trades onto younger people," Downes said of the union's five-year, 10,000-hour apprenticeship program. "If there are retirements, we're able to replace our work force with skilled personnel."

Kloempken said the operating engineers apprenticeship offers him good pay with raises every 1,000 hours — about six months — and benefits such as health insurance. After about four years, he will be eligible to apply for a journeyman operating engineer's license.

Downes said his apprentice plumbers and pipefitters start at about 50 percent of union wages — or roughly $16 to $18 an hour. He said the Thurston County requirement, if adopted, would help ensure that the county's bids are awarded to contractors who run state-certified apprenticeship programs, and not those who would try to under-bid jobs by using less-skilled labor.

Both union and nonunion contractors train apprentices, but the union programs are more widespread and are state-certified, Dines said.

The certification means that hours and training are closely monitored, and that contractors are less likely to misrepresent their apprentices' education and training.

"If this law is passed, it will make the nonunion side live up to its side of the bargain," Downes said.

Because of the pay, benefits, career advancement and on-the-job training, apprenticeship programs tend to be competitive. Kloempken said only 40 people were selected for his class out of more than 1,000 applicants.

Jared France of Shelton, a senior at New Market Skills Center in Tumwater, said he hopes to be chosen for an electrician apprenticeship after he graduates this month. The choice is made after union scouts watch students present their senior projects at the trades-oriented high school.

France, 17, is likely to be sought by the union since he is a gold-medal winner in the state Skills- USA carpentry competition, said Joe Kinerk, an administrator at New Market. France won the gold medal after he reduced a scale model of a single-family home down to doghouse size. He will compete in the national SkillsUSA contest in June in Kansas City.

Kloempken, who found his apprenticeship program through Helmets to Hardhats, an agency that aids ex-military personnel in securing construction trades jobs, said his roadwork stint in Lacey has an added benefit: a good supervisor.

"It just so happens that the journeyman operator on this job is my dad," he said of Ron Kloempken of Elma. "He gives me a lot of details and shows me something new every day."

Keri Brenner covers Thurston County for The Olympian. She can be reached at 360-754-5435 or kbrenner@theolympian.com.