Northwest Aerospace News June | July Issue No. 3 | Page 37

Employee training and development
McKenna is just one of 400 employees
in the company, with 300 employees
in manufacturing. Brosius said they in-
take four to five new people each week
in the training program, depending
upon people who exit each week.
As a testament to the nature of the
company, Vice President and General
Manager Tom Brosius came to the
company from a publicly traded com-
pany in the for-profit world. A recruiter
called and asked him to interview with
Orion, something he initially resist-
ed. “I wasn’t interested in working
at a nonprofit, but the recruiter asked
me to give them a chance as Orion is
not a typical nonprofit. I went in for
a 30-minute meet-and-greet with the
CEO and walked out three hours later
with a completely different opinion on
what the company was about,” Brosius
said.
While Brosius said that Orion is a
“self-supporting social enterprise, we
compete and try to be the company of
choice.” He noted that it is the same
vision for the worker retraining pro-
gram to be competitive, “be the best
person in the room” when competing
for jobs.
Not everyone is successful in the
training Brosius said, “We have a 65%
success rate for people who enter the
program and then move into compet-
itive employment. For the other 35%,
we find things that need professional
attention – like medical or psycho-
logical issues – to be successful, we
provide referrals to service providers
that can help resolve those areas; many
will reapply to Orion afterwards.”
At the end of training, workers are
expected to leave Orion ready to work.
They will have made major adjustments in skills development, including man-
ufacturing skills in a specific discipline, and in soft skills. Brosius personally
enjoys watching the transformation in attitude, and what the training does for
people. He tells stories about employees who have been chronically out of work
for a variety of reasons, that live in their parent’s basements, or are dependent on
others for living.
JUNE | JULY 2018 ISSUE NO. 3
37