Tools of The Trade

Butte-Glenn helps train existing and future employees for Johns Manville Fiberglass

Three men in construction gear sit around a table outside looking at work papers
Adult education keeps employees at Johns Manville up-to-date being helping to train existing and future employees. Photo by Charles Finlay

In small counties, finding employees with the unique skills a company needs can be difficult. Thanks to the Butte-Glenn Adult Education Consortium, employers can meet this challenge, both in terms of ensuring their current staff is up-to-date and that new hires with the proper training are available.

Marianne Kranz, database and support coordinator and maintenance supervisor at Johns Manville Fiberglass, says Butte-Glenn has filled a crucial role for their company.

“They’ve just been very helpful,” she says. “Anything we need, they’re more than willing to put something together for us.”

“They’ve just been very helpful. Anything we need, they’re more than willing to put something together for us.”

Marianne Kranz, Database and Support Coordinator and Maintenance Supervisor at Johns Manville Fiberglass

Johns Manville works with Butte-Glenn to develop specific classes for employees, including an apprenticeship course for electricians. The Consortium has also taught courses on blueprint reading, measurements and shop math, the skills needed for this roofing and insulation company. 

“When you’re dealing with pretty complex pieces of equipment or buildings, those [blueprints] can get pretty detailed,” Kranz says. “And then in shop math, we found that there’s a definite deficiency.”

Kranz says the company was surprised to learn some employees never received a real foundation of mathematics in school. “One of our guys, one of our electricians, he’s a smart guy, but he said, ‘I never did that in school. I never did shop math in school and multiplication and areas, geometry… I never got a chance to.’ So we had to help them catch up, which was pretty cool.”

Johns Manville also worked with Butte-Glenn to train office and clerical employees in skills like Excel and PowerPoint.

“The whole world’s becoming more computer-literate,” Kranz says. “We just needed to catch up because we have hourly production people who serve on focus teams and task forces.”

Through the partnership with Butte-Glenn, Johns Manville Fiberglass is able to not only better prepare their current employees for success, but help identify training needs within their company and the local area so that future labor needs are met.

For more information, visit butteglennadulted.org.

Written by Krysta Scripter

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