Cabinetmaking school needs your help

Actually, they are hoping to help you!

We all recognize that there's a critical shortage of trained workers in woodworking-related fields and very few training programs dedicated to filling that need. As many of you know, the New England School of Architectural Woodworking (NESAW) currently offers a 23-week career training course for cabinetmakers. Currently, the bulk of that time is devoted to building kitchen cabinets for members of the local community. Read a week-by-week description of our program here.

This year, we’ve fielded more calls than ever from employers looking for qualified workers, and we’ve realized that it’s time to re-visit the format of our training program to better meet your needs.

We currently graduate 9-12 students per year since we only run one five month program per year; this is obviously inadequate to meet the needs of the industry in the northeast, based on the number of inquiries we get. The problem is compounded by the fact that many of our students aren’t willing to relocate to areas where the jobs are, which makes it even more difficult to meet your needs. Finally, a five-month, $11K training program, (plus living expenses in some cases) can be difficult for potential students to commit to.  

This is why we’re looking for new ideas. Should we shorten the program and run it more often to graduate more students and meet industry needs more quickly? If so, what should we focus on from a training point of view?

We've considered limiting it to the curriculum in the first 8 weeks of our current program. Would this make it easier for you to find young people locally and help sponsor their training here at the school? Is there a bigger role to play for industry organizations in the training arena?

We have always been very proud of our five month program and the high quality graduates that we produce. But given the current situation in the industry, maybe a shorter program with the right content would provide potential employees that are well grounded in the basics and allow you to continue the training in house. We would insure that they are safe, understand the basics, and have a good work ethic.

We’re frankly open to just about anything, including a hybrid model, but need some feedback to make the right decision and make sure we do what’s best for the industry. Working together to develop a better training model can benefit all of us.

Join us for our first ever Employer Roundtable, to be held on July 11th, 2018 from 9:30 am – 1 pm here at NESAW in Easthampton, MA.  
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We would love to show you our facility, explain our current training program, and brainstorm on how we could improve and what you would want to see in a training program in the future. Even if you aren’t able to attend in person, we would welcome your feedback via phone call or in our forum. We also hope to be able to setup a dial-in number for those unable to attend in person; we'll send out more details when we have them.

Lunch will be provided by the New England Architectural Woodwork Institute (NEAWI) and Precision Veneer.  In addition, the NEAWI will be hosting a tour after lunch of Wright Architectural Millwork in Northampton, MA which you are welcome to join.
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If you and/or others in your company plan on attending, please register below so that we know how many people will be joining us. If you know of anyone else who might be interested in attending, please pass on the information.
 
Register

Click here for directions on how get to our shop.  It’s easy to find our building by using GPS, but much more difficult to find our shop, so please use the directions provided to find us.

Please feel free to email or call if you have questions or feedback for us or just want more information...

Greg Larson
Director, NESAW
greg@nesaw.com
www.nesaw.com