Students tour manufacturing facilities for glimpse at career options
Source: The News-Enterprise
By Greg Thompson
October 16, 2024
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High school students from area schools got a glimpse into the world of manufacturing.
The students were given tours at select manufacturing facilities in Hardin County as part of a program to help students see what careers are available through local employers.
Elizabethtown High School students Tuesday toured Dow and the company’s master distributor, Lentus, in Elizabethtown.
Lentus Operations Manager Jamie Land showed the school’s engineering students the site’s warehouse, manufacturing and the packaging sides.
“Talked about how they break down the silicone they get sent into smaller orders and they specialize it to send out for sealants,” sophomore Ellie Evans said. “They send out a lot of the 732 [multi-purpose sealant] and that’s because it fits a lot of things the military specifies.”
Lentus has doubled packaging efforts in less than a year’s time.
Drums of silicone are brought in from Dow for packaging. Land showed students the first manually-run packaging line Lentus used allowing an employee to fill approximately 4,000 cartridges a run.
“It’s a simpler line that can be done with two people,” Land said, from filling to placing the packaged products on a pallet.
Land turned and pointed to a fully-automated machine that will fill around 60,000 cartridges.
Lentus is a family-owned and operated company proud of how they treat their employees, Land said.
“I pride ourselves on being laid back here,” Land said. “Yeah, we have numbers we have to meet, yeah we have deadlines we have to meet, but we don’t pressure employees, we don’t make them stay and work overtime.”
Before laying eyes on Lentus’ facilities, EIS Workforce Readiness Coordinator Laura Berger said the students took a tour of Dow.
“They went through the line and see the different kinds of solvents, the silicones and they got to see examples of the different silicones on a board and feel them,” Berger said.
The whole purpose of the manufacturing tours is to let students know about the careers available in manufacturing and what kind of education might be required after high school.
Hardin County Schools Early College & Career Center students visited the Elizabethtown Community & Technical College BlueOval SK Training Center down the road in Glendale and also visited Altec, 200 Altec Drive in Elizabethtown.
Community Relations Manager Sarah Vaughn gave students an overview of BlueOval SK, the facility under construction right off Interstate 65, sharing it is 4 million square feet in space, or as large as 70 football fields.
“In July 2022, Ford and SK On … out of South Korea, got together and decided to have a baby,” Vaughn said. “That baby that was born is us, BlueOval SK.”
Combined, Ford and SK On will possess the best technology and with time will make EVs the most highly-efficient vehicles on the market, lasting years longer than gas-fueled automobiles, and more affordable.
“We’re still in the startup mode right now,” Vaughn said.
During a presentation, Vaughn showed an aerial view of the battery plant containing five sections. While one section toward the end of the facility is for storage the other four will each be responsible for creating a section of the NCM battery.
“Kentucky 1 is slated to open in 2025, hopefully within the first or second quarter,” Vaughn said. “Kentucky 2 is on pause for now.”
An example of a battery module was passed around for students to examine. When the hood of an EV is open, Vaughn said, there is no engine to be seen. The “frunk” as Vaughn referred to it, is storage space.
To date, about 800 employees have been hired to work for BlueOval SK. When the battery plant is operational there will be up to 2,500 employed.
For the second consecutive year, Elizabethtown-Hardin County Industrial Foundation, coordinated tours as part of Manufacturing Month for October. Manufacturing Month is a state-wide initiative created to recognize Kentucky’s manufacturing sector.
Elizabethtown’s manufacturing facilities employ more than 10,000 individuals making it the second-largest source of income.
Middle school students will be taking tours of manufacturing facilities later in the month.
