What a great opportunity for the youths of Fort Wayne!

The next Northeast Indiana Construction Alliance advisory meeting is Friday, January 10, 2020 at the Ironworkers’ Meeting and Training Hall, 6345 Innovation Blvd, Fort Wayne, 46818. For more information, please contact me at neicalliance@gmail.com

Read the Journal Gazette article on Northeast Indiana Works latest report

Watch this video about a program giving students an opportunity in a construction career.

·         We are hosting a High School Welding Competition for 29 contestants, there will be a 1^st and 2^nd place winner. This competition is only open to high school students and will take place Saturday January 18^th at 9:00am-12:00pm. We will provide lunch for everyone. Friends, family and anyone interested is more than welcome to come and cheer on their contestant, and tour our training facility. If anyone knows of a high school student who would like to compete there are still a few spots left. To register for the High School Welding Competition please visit our website http://www.ualocal166.org/high-school-welding-contest.html to submit an online registration.

·         We are hosting our Annual Apprenticeship Contest January 25^th from 8am-3:00pm all of our 5^th year apprentices participate in this contest. We will have a winner for each of our trades represented here HVAC, Pipefitter, Pipe Welder, and Plumber. The winners of this contest will go on to the Indiana State Pipe Trades Apprenticeship Contest. This year Local 166 has the honor of hosting the Indiana State Apprenticeship Contest, March 25^th & 26^st. The winners of the State Contest will go on to compete in District 2 Contest in June. Our local apprenticeship contest is by far the largest event that we put on in our training center and takes months to plan the projects and prepare for. The contest will test our apprentices skills with some of the most challenging projects that our instructors can come up with. We utilize our local Apprenticeship Contest as an open house for anyone who may be interested in the trades. We will have apprentices giving tours of the training center and answering questions about our apprenticeship program. Lunch will be provided at noon, this is a great opportunity to see our training center utilized to its fullest as we test the skills of our 5^th year apprentices. If you know anyone who is interested in possibly joining the Plumbers & Steamfitters Local 166 apprenticeship program this would be a great event to have him or her stop by and check out.

·         We will be hosting the Skills USA fabrication & welding (still waiting to hear back about the welding portion of the contest) contests here on Saturday February 8^th at 8:00am – 12:00pm. There will be a 1^st and 2^nd Place winner for both the Welding and Fabrication contests. For those of you not familiar with the skillsUSA Contests their mission statement is the following: SkillsUSA empowers its members to become world-class workers, leaders and responsible American citizens. SkillsUSA improves the quality of our nation’s future skilled workforce through the development of Framework skills that include personal, workplace and technical skills grounded in academics. SkillsUSA serves more than 360,000 students and instructors annually. This includes 20,926 instructors who join as professional members. Including alumni, SkillsUSA membership totals over 400,000. SkillsUSA has served more than 13.5 million annual members cumulatively since 1965. The Plumbers & Steamfitters Local 166 is a proud sponsor and host for the Skills USA programs and contests. We believe that getting High School Students involved in the trades not only provides great opportunities for the students, but helps the industry with future workforce needs.  

·         The Plumbers & Steamfitters Local 166 JATC has the honor of hosting the Indiana State Apprenticeship Contest this year. This contest is rotated between the 6 UA locals in Indiana and only comes to the Ft. Wayne area every six years. This contest will be held March 25^th & 26^th at our training center located in Ft. Wayne. I would like to invite all High Schools, Vocational Schools, Trade schools etc. to stop by and check out this event. We hope to have vendors set up display tables during this event and will have our training center on full display. During this contest the best apprentices from all over the state will be representing their locals in the trades of Plumbing, HVACR , Pipe Welding, and Pipefitting. One winner from each trade will then be advanced to compete in the District 2 contest, the District 2 contest is made up of winners from 7 states. The winners of the District 2 contest will then proceed to compete at the international contest held in Ann Arbor, MI in August. Those that make it to the International contest compete with the winners from all 6 districts in the United States, Canada, Ireland, and Australian winners, and represent the best out of the 70,000 apprentices affiliated with the UA.

Just a reminder we take applications for our apprenticeship program year-round at our website http://www.ualocal166.org if you or anyone you know is interested in starting a career in the Pipe Trades Industry.

If anyone has any questions about any of these events or anything else please feel free to give me a call. Thank you very much for your support.

Chris Brown

Director of Training

Plumbers & Steamfitters Local 166

2930 West Ludwig Road

Fort Wayne, IN 46818

Phone: 260-490-5690