CENTER TWP Visitors at the Clearview Mall Friday got some insight into manufacturing in Butler County as well as a look at the rapid computerization of industry.

This came at the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Expo, organized by the Butler County Manufacturing Consortium. The expo, which has about a dozen vendors as well as high school students from throughout the county, continues through Saturday.

The STEM initiative, as it is also known, is an effort to get students interested in careers in the science and technology fields as well as to promote these fields where the United States is losing ground to other countries.

“Manufacturing is not dead in this country,” said Douglas R. Bartosh, owner of Unimach Manufacturing in Fenelton.

“(We are here) to let people know what is being manufactured in the county and where our parts go,” he said.

Bartosh, who also is treasurer of the Butler Manufacturing Consortium, is a third-year presenter at the STEM expo.

“The industry has changed drastically. I know most of my machinery is now computerized,” he said. “We're not the dirty, old, dingy barns we used to be.”

Unimach has six employees and supplies many parts to the military. Several parts on display included a machine gun part, the nose cone for an F-16 fighter jet and part of a bank vault door patented by the company.

Bartosh said the industry relishes opportunities like the one presented by the expo because it shows parents and youth that there are alternatives to college.

“A lot of young people don't realize what it takes to manufacture stuff like this,” he said.

“Manufacturers are suffering because we need good, skilled people.”

Ken Hilke, computer-aided drafting and robotics instructor at the Butler County Vocational-Technical School, said a lot of parents don't realize the viability of vo-tech programs as a lead-in to college.

“People used to think of vo-tech as ‘Oh, my kid can't go to college.' Now, vo-tech prepares kids for these professions, actually putting them ahead of the class, should they attend a university,” he said.

Hilke said an added bonus of the vo-tech programs is they offer students a chance to try a vocation for free, without the cost of college.

Hilke backed up his claim by presenting several student-designed-and-built robots, one of which was a large, tank-treaded robot capable of kicking a soccer ball, created for last year's U.S. First robotics competition.

Also last year, the vo-tech team built underwater remote-operated vehicles.

“The gulf oil disaster (when these vehicles were used to study the environmental impacts) fit really nice into my program last year,” Hilke joked.

He said more than 75 percent of the students who complete two-year courses at the vo-tech go on to post-high school education or find work right out of school.

Bruce N. Curry, vice president of sales for Zelienople-based Penna Flame, said manufacturers in the county, especially those in the manufacturing consortium, are consulted to help structure the curriculum for vo-tech programs such as the associate degree in robotics at Butler County Community College, offered for the first time this semester

“You almost have to (change), because the young people don't want to do things the old way; they want to press buttons,” Curry said.

He added that robots also allow for repeatability and consistency in products.

“We have introduced robots, as well. The first robot is only about two years old,” Curry said.

He said that Penna Flame, which has about 25 employees, places an emphasis on math and physics knowledge in employees, things taught in curriculums like the newly created one at BC3.

“Someone coming out of that program would be very high on our interview list,” he said.

Neil Ashbaugh, who is the senior marketing specialist with Oberg Industries, attributed Butler County's relatively low unemployment rate to manufacturing.

“It has to do with diversification as well as the style of manufacturing that we do. That's what makes this area different,” he said.

“Every one of these companies fills a niche market, and they provide value.”

Hilke said the computerization of jobs seems to panic people who fear it will cost Americans their jobs, but he said progress is necessary

“We have to compete in a world market where people will work for pennies to do those jobs elsewhere,” he said.

Hilke said it is difficult to get students interested in engineering, embedded electronics and computer programming at the high school level and beyond, but that interest must be rekindled if manufacturing is to survive in the United States.

“The U.S. military, for one, cannot outsource to China,” he said.

“We don't just need a lot of people in these fields. We need the best and the brightest.”

Being among those brightest means continuing education, as well.

Curry said Penna Flame sends its employees to a school of California-based Fanuc Robotics to learn its new technologies, while Bartosh said Unimach employees receive regular on-the-job training.

“Every time we buy a new machine, we have to send the operators to school for it. The technology seems to change every six months,” Bartosh said.