{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://harris.house.gov/media/in-the-news/rep-harris-tours-north-east-company-talks-workforce-needs-swn-roundtable", "Rep. Harris Tours North East Company, Talks Workforce Needs at SWN Roundtable", "2017-04-20", "2017", "2017-04", "Republican", "House", "MD", "Andy Harris", "H001052", "harris.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "NORTH EAST \u2014 In the last three years, Composites USA General Manager Dan Naugle has never hired anyone who\u2019s had a job.\nAll his workers have been previously unemployed, some are living in their cars and many are drug- or alcohol-dependent. Finding workers is so difficult that Naugle has set himself the modest goal of finding one or two good people a year.\n\u201cIf I can get two people a year that I can have as a core \u2014 and I have a couple decent people out there already although I think they are alcohol-dependent \u2014 if I can get one or two drug-free people a year for four or five years, I can have a good core of 10 or 15 people,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s tough.\u201d\nNaugle relayed his concerns about the workforce to U.S. Rep. Andy Harris (R-1st District) when the congressman visited the company, which makes fiberglass reinforced plastics, on Thursday afternoon. After visiting Composites USA, Harris traveled down to Harford Community College to participate in a roundtable discussion hosted by the Susquehanna Workforce Network, a nonprofit focusing on workforce development in Cecil and Harford counties.\nComposites USA, which has been located off Route 272 in North East since 1985, has major clients such as DuPont, Pennsylvania State University, Intel and Boeing, and primarily manufacturers products such as pipes and storage tanks out of fiberglass reinforced plastic. Unlike regular pipes and tanks, these ones are corrosive-resistant, which makes them ideal for companies that do a lot of work with chemicals, Naugle said.\nWhile giving Harris a tour, which was also attended by representatives from the American Composites Manufacturers Association (ACMA), Naugle was proud to note that his company uses only American materials and doesn\u2019t import anything from overseas.\nBut while he pays his workers good wages \u2014 the average wage is $20.50 an hour \u2014 and has a low turnover rate, Naugle said he still has a hard time finding good employees. Part of the reason, he conceded, is that he has \u201cmedium-skill\u201d jobs, which differ from the low-skill jobs offered by the many warehouses coming to the county and require more training. In addition, Naugle said it typically takes 18 months to fully train a worker, noting that small mistakes in production can end up costing his company tens of thousands of dollars.\nHe recently worked with SWN to hire three people out of one of its programs that is supposed to make unemployed people \u201chirable,\u201d Naugle said.\n\u201cOne of them didn\u2019t show up the first day, one of them worked an hour and one of them worked a week,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought I was doing a good thing, but I didn\u2019t get anything.\u201d\nNaugle said he\u2019s heard similar concerns from other manufacturers in the area, and Harris sympathized with his need for a better workforce. He pointed out that attempts to raise the minimum wage are resulting in automation at places like McDonald\u2019s and taking away the entry-level jobs that kids used to work in order to get some experience in the workforce. In addition, the \u201cwelfare state\u201d also de-incentivizes people to work, he added.\nAs a member of the House Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Services Subcommittee, Harris said he thinks the biggest issue is that the education system has not yet figured out how to match the needs of the workforce. Naugle agreed and said he sees a huge lack of people \u201cwho tinker\u201d and work with their hands, which makes it harder to train them to work at his company.\n\u201cHow do we make sure that you don\u2019t have to sit here worrying every day that, gosh, if two people quit on that floor, how am I going to be able to replace them and how long will it take to train them?\u201d Harris asked.\n\u201cYou hit it right on the head,\u201d Naugle replied. \u201cThat\u2019s what I think every day.\u201d\nA similar conversation around skills in the workforce occurred when Harris traveled over the bridge to the HCC campus in Aberdeen for a roundtable discussion hosted by SWN with more than a dozen members of the regional business community.\nBeginning the discussion, SWN Executive Director Bruce England briefed the congressman on SWN\u2019s operations, which generally revolve around the placement of laid off workers in new positions and assisting businesses with finding skilled workers. England told Harris that SWN places between 82 and 90 percent of its clients in a new position with a sustainable wage. Of those, 60 to 70 percent are retained for a year.\n\u201cThat\u2019s pretty good,\u201d Harris replied.\nAs the discussion progressed, business leaders pointed to a labor force that is often times lacking in certain skills, a dilemma that hinders economic growth.\nSteven Overbay, deputy director of Harford County\u2019s Department of Economic Development, said that Aberdeen Proving Ground has hundreds of unfilled jobs in cybersecurity.\nWarwick Mushroom farm manager Jack Reitnauer said he\u2019s struggling to find workers with the mechanical and computer skills that his business needs.\n\u201cWe hear it throughout the agriculture sector,\u201d Harris said on the declining workforce. \u201cI don\u2019t know what we\u2019re doing wrong.\u201d\nOther business owners said the region has a need for more trade workers \u2014 such as welders and machinists \u2014 and they voiced frustration that schools appear to be pushing more and more students toward four-year universities.\n\u201cWhy we don\u2019t have more welders and machinists is depressing,\u201d Harris said, noting the competitive pay for these occupations.\nAnother handful said employees often lack life skills, such as the ability to show up on time and work hard.\n\u201cI don\u2019t know what we\u2019re teaching in our schools, to be honest with you,\u201d Harris said. \u201cWe\u2019re failing that.\u201d\nReflecting on the concerns of the business community, Harris asked whether schools seemed to be receptive to the business community\u2019s needs. England indicated that schools are receptive and active in preparing students, but that there are limitations.\nTalking about the need to prepare machinists, England said that \u201cthe technology is costly.\u201d\nEngland pointed to the Cecil County School of Technology \u2014 which offers programs in a plethora of diverse fields \u2014 as one way the county is addressing workforce development.\nHarris called it a \u201cbeautiful facility\u201d with \u201cgreat promise.\u201d\nOberbay added that Harford Technical High School is increasingly competitive and unable to serve the county\u2019s growing population. He added that the school appears to be pushing students toward attending four-year universities, instead of pushing them towards a trade program.\n\u201cI think our vocational process has lost sight\u201d of the important of trades, he said.\nAfterward, Harris said he heard a need to better prepare the workforce, from recent high school graduates who have never had a job to people who have been laid off from a job they held for decades.\n\u201cThis is important, because the necessary skill set changes over time and changes with location. These have to be locally matched,\u201d Harris said. \u201cOne of the advantages of the (Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act), the current workforce act, as you heard, hopefully allows the flexibility for these decisions to be made locally, not from Washington.\u201d\nSource: Cecil Whig", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://harris.house.gov/media/in-the-news/rep-harris-tours-north-east-company-talks-workforce-needs-swn-roundtable"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9065868798643351, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}