Apprenticeships: High costs yield high value - By Caitlin Coakley, The Mecklenburg Times - March 2010

Local companies are risking a lot of time and money to give students a solid start on their careers. It’s a serious effort, which showed on the face of Edward Deans one evening this week, as he held a 4-inch-long metal piece up to the light. His brow furrowed as he examined the slot he had filed in the center. Unsatisfied, he put the piece back into the table-mounted clamp and resumed filing. “It’s a puzzle project,” said Karl Golinski, 21, the fourth-year apprentice overseeing the students’ work. “They have to file out slots to make the pieces fit together.” >> read full story

The case for manufacturing - by Ken Elkins, Charlotte Business Journal -   August 2008

The difficult environment for manufacturing is pushing Lincoln County's Blum, Inc. to broaden its recruting efforts - to a job prospect's whole family. The cabinet hardware maker often faces skepticism form parents who've seen firsthand the fickle and sometimes dangerous nature of industrial jobs. So Blum makes it a point to win over Mom and Dad while courting canidates for its work force for the future. >> read full story

News 14 Carolina - August 21, 2008

Apprentices graduate Blum training program - KBDN - August 2008

"Blum, Inc. and several other area companies involved in the Apprenticeship 2000 program honored the program's 2008 graduates recently. The 10 graduates completed a total of 8,000 hours of training over teh last four years, with 1,800 of those hours at Central Piedmont Community College. Graduates earned an Associate's degree in manufacturing technology, a journeyman's certification from the North Carolina Department of Labor and are guaranteed a job within their partner company starting at >> read full story

Down The Road Dividends - by Anna Dykema, Charlotte Weekly -   September 2008

"Some would call it risk; others, good business. But Blum USA, a global manufacturer of furniture fittings and kitchen design components, says Apprenticeship 2000, a program that inests in a future skilled-labor workforce, is simply a smart investment. Fellow program participants Ameritech, Max Daetwyler Corp., Sarstedt Inc. and Timken agree. >> read full story

Pride and Appreciation Ameritech - by Derek Korn, Modern Machine -   January 2007

"Ameritech finds it easier to instill its machining-to-zero-stock mindset into a sharp young person who doesn’t have conflicting, preconceived notions about how machining and mold building “should” be carried out. My writing career began in a similar fashion nearly a decade ago. A company needing a person to write about the application of manufacturing technologies hired an amateur gearhead with an engineering degree but no professional writing experience. I made up for initially limited storytelling skills with an appreciation of those technologies and the desire to learn more about them." >> read full story

At apprenticeship, you're hired ! - by Joe Marusak, Charlotte Observer -    July 2006

"These guys are like an investment in the future," Ralf Atzor, Blum's vice president of engineering, told me on a tour ofthe plant Friday at N.C. 16 and Old Plank Road. Blum and Daetwyler in Huntersville formed the program in 1995, after facing a shortage of skilled technicians. Blum had two job openings at the time, one for an accountant, one for a machinist. The Austria-based cabinetry-parts maker got 100 applications for the accounting job and three for machinist. I wrote about the program three years after it launched and am happy to report, today, it's as strong as ever." >> read full story