ANN ARBOR – Twenty years ago, the week-long United Association Instructor Training Program was loaded up and moved from Purdue University to Washtenaw Community College.

About 1,200 pipe trades instructors attended classes at WCCC in 1990; this year, that number had grown to more than 1,800 from across the U.S. and Canada. The train-the-trainer program brings UA instructors up to speed on the teaching of a wide variety of pipe trades applications as they’re developed, from medical gas installation, to new methods for fitting pipe, to no-flush toilet installation.

“I am extremely impressed with the rigor required of the professionals who attend the UA Summer Instructor Training Program,” said WCC President Larry Whitworth. “They come in from every state and province in North America and return to their local communities to share the latest knowledge, technology, and techniques with the next generation of plumbers and pipe fitters. This is certainly one of the finest and most comprehensive instructor training and education programs anywhere in the country.”

The annual visit by the United Association instructors Aug. 8-14 to Washtenaw County was preceded by the Aug. 1-7 program sponsored National Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee for the electrical industry instructors. As we reported in our last issue, IBEW instructors pulled their program from the union-unfriendly confines of the University of Tennessee-Knoxville campus, with the expressed purpose of finding a new union-friendly home on the University of Michigan campus.

“As usual, the City of Ann Arbor and Washtenaw Community College did a wonderful job of welcoming the UA instructors,” said Plumbers and Pipe Fitters Local 190 Business Manager Bryce Mitchell. “It was a great week. The United Association has had the same good reception every year from the community, and now it looks like the IBEW has also found a home here, too.”

In 2003, the United Association teamed with Washtenaw Community College as the site for the Great Lakes Regional Training Center, making UA education a permanent part of the landscape at the school with the opening of a new building dedicated to the union’s needs. The partnership grew to allow UA instructors to receive WCC degree credits for classes taken in-person or online through the distance learning program.

The positive long-term association the UA has had with the Washtenaw Community College helped the IBEW/NJATC make its decision to move – and Washtenaw County is a major beneficiary. Each group pumped about $5 million into the local economy during what is typically a slow few weeks of the year.

“It’s a very good setup they have here,” said UA Local 50 (Toledo) instructor Jim Zywocki.

(Janet Hawkins/WCC contributed)