Published September 2001

Immigrants train
for Solectron success

By Bryan Corliss
Herald Economy Writer

For Anatoliy Nazarchuk, the American dream starts with a circuit board.

“In Ukraine,” he said, “I didn’t have freedom to get a profession. Here, we can go to college. In here, we have good jobs.”

The “good job” he refers to is at Solectron in Everett, where he and about 60 other political or economic refugees help assemble printed circuit-board assemblies that eventually will be used by Internet or aerospace companies.

He got the job — and training in English — through a unique partnership that includes the state of Washington, Everett Community College and the Refugee and Immigrant Forum of Snohomish, Whatcom and Skagit counties.

Service agencies may be involved, but it’s a job-training program, not charity, said Hank Lounsberry, Director of Training Programs at Solectron.

“We’re not into just hiring people,” he said. “I’ve been a little suspicious of some of these programs, but I’m pretty sold on this one.”

The state’s sold on it, too. WorkFirst and WorkSource — two state welfare-to-work programs — recently presented Solectron with awards recognizing its contribution to immigrant education and training.

The program works like this:

Solectron works with the Refugee Forum and the college to identify potential candidates who are first-generation immigrants. They are screened closely, Lounsberry said. Sixteen are chosen at a time.

They start with English-as-second-language training first. “They need to get some of the terminology down before they get into the technical part of it,” Lounsberry said.

After 12 to 14 weeks of language training — for which they are paid — the graduates move into the assembly area, where they get 32 hours of specific skills training.

They need that before they go out on the assembly floor, said Kathy Laviola, one of Solectron’s trainers. Without it, “the machines can be intimidating, they’re so big.”

After that, they start work: operating the manufacturing equipment, assembling circuit boards or inspecting completed ones.

Solectron manufactures hardware for other technology companies. The company doesn’t publicly discuss who its customers are, but a glance around the assembly area reveals the corporate logos of most of the best-known electronics companies in the United States.

Outsourcing — hiring Solectron to manufacture their products — allows those companies to focus on research, development, marketing and sales.

Starting pay for the new workers is “about 30 percent over minimum wage,” Lounsberry said — in the neighborhood of $8.50 an hour.

But the graduates continue to get English language training, as well as more advanced skills training.

Improving English skills is important, Lounsberry said. “We spend quite a bit of money on training, and it comes back in spades.”

Solectron doesn’t do it for charity, he said. It’s always a challenge to find and retain good workers, to “establish a pipeline of good people.” The refugee program does that, he said.

“These people are highly skilled, and we want to keep them,” he said. “We’re really a pragmatic company.”

The program was launched 18 months ago. So far, almost everyone who has completed it has been hired, Lounsberry said. The few exceptions were mostly people who took their training and went to work elsewhere.

Nazarchuk came here three years ago in search of more religious freedom. He heard about the program through Everett Community College, checked it out and decided, “If you work for Solectron, you have good future.”

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