Thomas Breen photos
MATCH trainee Ross Stanley: "It's really amazing, because there's so many things we can learn."
At the newly unveiled climate-focused mural at 20 Mill St.
Hill native and former Yale cafeteria worker Ross Stanley took a step closer towards building a career in local manufacturing, as he joined six fellow trainees in a Fair Haven warehouse where lighting fixtures — and industrial jobs — will soon be fabricated.
Stanley, 34, is one of seven inaugural members of the Manufacturing and Community Technical Hub (MATCH) trainee cohort.
On Monday morning, he and his colleagues joined with MATCH Board of Directors Chair Marcia LaFemina, MATCH President/CEO Mark Lahner, MATCH Board member Lindy Lee Gold, Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, Mayor Justin Elicker, Fair Haven Alder Sarah Miller, Yale School of Art Dean Kymberly Pinder, and a host of others to celebrate the work of the nonprofit-run manufacturing training program.
The press conference took place at a long-vacant warehouse building at 20 Mill St. MATCH trainees have spent the summer working there in preparation for the expected delivery later this week of a handful of machines — lathes, metal turning, a CNC turret punch press, and others — that will be used to construct MATCH-branded machine lights, small fans, and “whatever the marketplace will bear,” Lahner said.
The training program is conducted in both English and Spanish, and takes place 25 hours a week with a specific goal of being accessible to working moms.
MATCH CEO Mark Lahner, with one of the "magnet lights" MATCH plans to fabricate at 20 Mill.
Stanley and his fellow trainees will learn how to cut metal and make those MATCH-branded products. They’ll also be trained on a host of other aspects of running a manufacturing business, from IT to logistics to purchasing to marketing to sales.
The trainees get paid to learn — minimum wage for now, Lahner said — with the goal of using their newly acquired manufacturing-business skills to get full time jobs in the industry afterwards and making way for a new cohort of trainees. Lahner said that there are seven trainees in the first cohort, as well as three full-time employees at MATCH; over the next two years, he hopes to build the company into a staff of 12 to 15, along with 30 trainees per cohort. MATCH is currently leasing the Mill Street warehouse space, which consists of a groundfloor area for manufacturing and a newly built-out second floor office space.
“It’s really amazing, because there’s so many things we can learn to help others,” Stanley said about the three months of training he’s received so far through MATCH, and about the prospects of building a career in manufacturing to help provide for and serve as a role model for his nine children. “Other people in the community like me, [MATCH] gives them the opportunity to learn.”
Outside, and inside, 20 Mill St. on Monday.
Over the course of Monday’s presser, MATCH leaders and elected officials celebrated the nonprofit-run program as training New Haveners for good-paying jobs in the future, for being self-sustaining through its sale of MATCH-branded lights and other products, and for helping breathe new life into Fair Haven’s industrial past.
They also lauded a newly completed mural on the side of the Mill Street building. Put together by the Yale School of Art, the mural is designed to draw attention to the climate-change-exacerbated calamity of “hot cities,” and what to do about it, said Dean Pinder.
MATCH celebrators Lindy Lee Gold ...
... Mayor Justin Elicker ...
... Fair Haven Alder Sarah Miller ...
... and MATCH Board Chair Marcia LaFemina.
“Today we’re celebrating inclusive growth to make sure there is a career path training, and not just jobs,” Gold said.
“This is a huge opportunity,” Elicker said, given the “flexible timing,” the bilingual instruction for Spanish speakers, and the fact that the trainees are being paid as they learn. He said the city contributed $100,000 to MATCH to help make this hub a reality.
“This is exactly what we need in Fair Haven,” added Alder Miller.
“The thing that does make us different is accessibility,” said LaFemina.
Lahner said that the machines to be used in the Mill Street factory should arrive later this week. He encouraged onlookers to come back in a couple weeks to see the full operation — from fabricating lights to marketing and selling these products — up and running in full force.
Click here to learn more and apply for the MATCH program.