LEARN TO EARN TRAINING PROGRAMS SET UP TEAMMATES FOR SUCCESS TODAY, ADVANCEMENT TOMORROW

Few manufacturing jobs in Arkansas carry as many perks and benefits as working for Nucor Steel Arkansas or Nucor-Yamato Steel (NYS). From high pay to generous benefits, the compensation offered here is well known. But ask anyone who works here, and they will also point to the personal growth and skills development they have achieved as a result of the company’s mentality of continuous improvement.

“They are eager to send you to training and that’s probably one of my favorite things about working here,” said Ethan Green, an industrial electrician who’s been on board for 18 months. “If you want to learn something, they are willing to teach it or send you to a place that will teach you.”

Like a lot of new hires, Green didn’t have well-developed technical experience coming out of high school. But thanks to a steel tech internship, an educational partnership between Nucor and Arkansas Northeastern College in Blytheville, he was able to learn quickly.

“My internship definitely helped a lot, plus working out here in the mill,” he said. “The stuff in the book is great, but you can’t really do much with it until you apply it out there in the field. I worked with the day guys and the shift guys seeing what their job roles were. They helped me with questions I had from school and showed me what the job was really like.”

Tyler Avery, project electrical automation technician for NYS, knows the value of the internship well. A decade ago, the 28-year-old was the very first electrical intern to go through the program.

“When I was in high school, I knew college wasn’t for me,” he said. “So, I chose to get a skilled trade and with Nucor’s help, I’m doing right now what an electrical engineer typically does.”

Avery said he’s not anti-college; in fact, he’s gone back to school to finish his degree, paid for by Nucor.

“Now that I’m mature enough to take it seriously, Nucor is paying for me to go back to school to get my four-year education,” he said. “I’ve done the electrical side, I’ve done the automation side and now I’m getting into the supervision side, so I’m learning about leadership roles. That’s definitely given my career a head start.”

As robust as the formal training programs are here, some of the best training comes outside the classroom, shared on the job and handed down from one generation of Nucor teammate to another. Charles Casey, Cold Mill 2 Supervisor at Nucor Steel Arkansas and a 31-year veteran of the company, said it’s been this way for as long as he can remember.

“Our guys on the floor are really good about taking their time to train newer folks and show them what needs to be done, how to work safely,” he said. “How we approach and talk to our leads out on the floor, that is us extending a helping hand to our new guys. There’s a lot of mentorship.

When a new teammate shows up, before they do the job that they’re hired to do, they work with a veteran teammate who’s doing that job, and they will not be released to do that job on their own until their mentor thinks they’re ready to go.

“I tell young people all the time that Nucor is a place where what you’ve got to do is have a desire to come to work and put your head down and work hard and work safe. You are in control of your entire career here. If you’re here on time and do a good job, the sky is the limit for you.”