SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. –Kanawha Valley FAME is going into its third year of allowing students to go to college while also learning hands-on experience.

FAME, Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education, is a program that allows students to complete an associate’s degree in advanced manufacturing technology at BridgeValley Community and Technical College tuition free. Students would have classes on campus two days out of the week and the rest of the days they would be working with one of the eight employers that FAME has.
Through the program students get the opportunity to work at different companies such as Toyota Buffalo, Armstrong World Industries, Niterra North America, Nucor Steel WV, Parkline, Prolift Toyota Material Handling, and Service Wire Company
Megan Lomax, Business Outreach Coordinator for Putnam County Development Authority, says that the program allows students to gain valuable work experience before they graduate.
“So, FAME is an apprenticeship model that basically goes into a manufacturing or industrial facility and they can look at the types of equipment that may be going down or needs preventative maintenance and they can do electrical work, mechanical work, fluid power work, hydraulic work things like that to ensure the equipment and all the process in that facility are working and operating,” Lomax said.
The program held an open house at BridgeValley Community and Technical College, in which they could walk around and talk to the different companies and learn what they do.
Lomax said that the open house is used for outreach to let students know what the program is.
“We want the community to know about the great opportunity, potentially through some grant programs through the state of West Virginia,” she said.
She said there were a couple of initial criteria students have to meet, such as being 18 years or older and commit to being drug free.
However, Lomax said that there is a three-step process to actually apply. They should apply for admission into the college, submit an AMT Work sponsorship application and then submit SAT and ACT test scores and high school transcript or a college transcript if they have it. And if they don’t have either the SAT or ACT scores, FAME has an internal test that is like those exams that students can take called Accuplacer, which can be found on BridgeValley’s website.
After students submit everything, then the PCDA will review the candidates.
“You submit all of that to BridgeValley and then internally we’ll look to ensure that candidate is qualified,” she said.
Once students have submitted their applications and PCDA has looked at them, they will be invited to be interviewed by all eight of the employers. The eight employers will then offer an apprenticeship to a student that they want.
She also says that nationally there has been success with the program, seeing people either pursue engineering degrees, go into maintenance positions or management positions.
“Nationally is what’s really fascinating is there are over 2800 chapters across the nation of FAME and 90% of the participants actually get placed with their full-time employer for a position after the two years, so it’s a very high success rate that you’ll remain in a position at the company that sponsored you,” Lomax said.
Stacy Droddy, Staffing Analyst for Toyota Buffalo, agreed saying internally she has seen high success rates since Toyota began the program with BridgeValley 12 years ago.
“A lot of my AMT students advance very quickly, I have several in leadership roles since the inception in 2012,” she said. “We also are noticing that a lot of our AMT students are getting pulled into an engineering pathway with Toyota with just their two-year degree.”
Droddy also said that being able to see students achieve success through the program has been amazing.
“I can honestly say that this job is my passion, just to help young people, especially West Virginians, I’m a West Virginian,” she said. “Anything that helps our West Virginia people live and thrive in West Virginia and these are great jobs, it’s a great program with a great future for our young people.”
The last day to apply for the program is March 9.
To learn more, you can visit Putnam County Development Authority website here.