CLEVELAND, Ohio — “The people in this area, they were just naturally hard workers, and you just need the facilities and the businesses here to give these people an opportunity to show what they could do,” said Daniel Vodhanel, of Panelmatic Building Solutions. “Because I definitely believe in the Youngstown area we have some of the hardest working people, you know, in the entire country.”
Panelmatic, Inc., which serves manufacturing industries by designing and building control panels, was founded in Youngstown, Ohio in 1957.
The company quickly branched out to places across the country, but when it came time to open the most recent location, manager Daniel Vodhanel says it was important to come back home to meet a growing need for attainable jobs in the area.
- The unemployment rates in the Youngstown-Warren area are among the highest in the state
- Panelmatic chose to open one of its newest facilities in Trumbull County
- The company is focused on the strengths of the working population in the Mahoning Valley by providing attainable jobs in trade and manufacturing skills
“Instantly, we had hundreds of people apply, you know, just the first weekend, and I think even during the six-month period, we had over 800 applicants for all the different disciplines here,” he said.
The new Panelmatic plant is just outside of Youngstown, Ohio, an area that had the highest unemployment rate in the state for most of last year, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
As of November 2019, Youngstown’s unemployment rate was 6.8 percent, with its neighboring county of Warren coming in slightly higher at 6.9 percent. Overall, Ohio's unemployment rate was 4.2 percent.
Thomas Humphries has been with the Youngstown-Warren Regional Chamber for more than 20 years and has called Youngstown home all of his life. He says the landscape of the area is changing, and so are the demands.
“The attainment level is raising and we have to try to raise our population. If you look at 20 years ago, we had one of the highest high school graduation rates in the state, but they didn't exceed that. Twenty years ago we were more manufacturing than we were anything else, and frankly, the production floor did not require an associate's degree or bachelor's so we started down here.” Humphries said.
Humphries says moving forward, he can see the unemployment numbers dropping significantly, with a continued focus on education.
“It starts as early as preschool to grade school to high school to two-year college. So you have to have a system that will support that and help the population get through it,” said Humphries.
And focusing on the strengths of the Mahoning Valley region.
“Distribution, warehousing, that all fits our education attainment level, although we want that higher. We do have a population that can deal with that type of work,” Humphries said.
He says even with major changes like the halting of General Motors vehicle production at the Lordstown plant last year, there is still opportunity.
“I’m very hopeful that we're on the right path... we have new technology being introduced, it's still in the transportation world, with the batteries and with the truck plant,” said Humphries.
Vodhanel says he’s hopeful that this year, businesses will find the skills and the smarts to fill open positions, just like Panelmatic was able to.
“When you sit down, you look and you say, wow, we've hired 25 people in the last six months, and these are all people that are new to Panelmatic and people who might have not necessarily had a job. We've had a lot of people that have moved back here from out of state that had moved away and they couldn't find a job in the skilled trades that this was a perfect fit for. So, it is a good feeling!” Vodhanel said.
