Spokane Valley Tech and Skills Center high school has emerged as a steady source of talent for Spokane manufacturers by providing hands-on training and exposure to career and employment opportunities in the Inland Northwest.

Each year in May, Salvatore Lorenzen, an electronics and advanced manufacturing instructor at Spokane Valley Tech, receives calls from Spokane-area manufacturers who are seeking skilled, entry-level recruits, only for those companies to discover that Lorenzen’s students have already been hired months earlier by December or January. 

“That’s kind of the workforce in general right now,” Lorenzen says. “Everybody is scrambling for people.”

The current demand for labor reflects broader regional pressures, he explains. Lorenzen notes that many Inland Northwest manufacturers report persisting labor shortages of machinists, welders, assemblers, and aerospace technicians, which are being driven by retiring baby boomers and a thinning pipeline of younger workers who are entering the trades.  

“I call it the gray tsunami in waiting,” he says. “The industry is kind of realizing it had a lot of people retire, and we didn’t keep bringing people in.”

One way manufacturing companies here are working to overcome labor shortages is by recruiting high school students.

Spokane Valley Tech has two seniors who are currently paid employees while earning high school credits, he says. One student works at Spokane Valley-based MacKay Manufacturing Inc., a precision manufacturer of medical, satellite, and rocket components. A second student is working for custom sheet metal manufacturer Fabtech Precision Manufacturing Inc., also of Spokane Valley, via a youth advanced manufacturing apprenticeship program. 

Aerospace Joint Apprenticeship Committee, a Kent, Washington-based organization that trains skilled workers in aerospace and advanced manufacturing industries through apprenticeships, sponsors the youth apprenticeship program.

Greater Spokane Valley Chamber of Commerce coordinates monthly industry tours scheduled across the Inland Northwest for students to gain direct exposure to employers seeking to hire students ahead of graduation. 

Thomas Gill, director of community engagement at Greater Spokane Valley Chamber of Commerce, says through the organization's Manufacturing Connect program, he coordinates two to three site visits per month to manufacturing facilities in the area, excluding the months of June and December. In the 2024-2025 school year, students toured 21 regional facilities. So far this year, eight tours have been completed, he says. The tours are a helpful strategy to spark curiosity about potential job opportunities and allow students to envision themselves in manufacturing careers post-graduation, he says.

“It’s funny, actually, the students are hired from the tours,” says Gill. “The cool thing about Spokane Valley Tech is once they are hired, they are able to work around their school schedule.”

There are over 1,200 manufacturing businesses in the Spokane region that produce goods essential to industries around the world, from aerospace components, to metal castings, and medical equipment, according to information from the Greater Spokane Valley Chamber of Commerce.  

So far this school year, students have toured Metals Fabrication Company Inc., in Airway Heights; Leisure Concepts Inc. in Hillyard; Altek Inc., in Liberty Lake; and Northwest Trends of Spokane Inc., also in Liberty Lake, Gill says. The chamber also arranges visits to a mix of employers including larger, well-known manufacturers such as Kaiser Aluminum Corp., and small mom-and-pop shops with fewer than 10 employees, he says.

Spokane Valley Tech students tour Fabtech Precision Manufacturing Inc., in Spokane Valley.
-Greater Spokane Valley Chamber of Commerce

Spokane Valley Tech was launched in 2013 in a former Rite Aid building at 115 S. University Road in Spokane Valley. The school initially functioned as a skills center serving juniors and seniors from high schools in the Spokane area, says Lorenzen, who has been teaching at the school since it was established. Spokane Valley Tech has since expanded to serve freshmen and sophomore students.

Throughout the advanced manufacturing courses taught by Lorenzen, students learn an array of technical skills, including computer numerical control machining, plasma cutting, press brake operating, and welding. Lorenzen recently added an electronics program to support demand for The Boeing Co.’s electrical assembly pathways. The advanced manufacturing course also provides safety training. Upon completion of the course, students are certified through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and have received first aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and automated external defibrillator training through Lorenzen, who is a certified instructor. 

Spokane Valley Tech also partners with Core Plus Aerospace, a two-year high school advanced manufacturing curriculum that prepares students for careers in aerospace through hands-on learning. The program includes a six-week summer internship at Boeing’s Everett, Washington, campus, Lorenzen says. He estimates that about a dozen students have gone on to work at Boeing from Spokane Valley Tech since 2015.

“I’m hoping more kids do that because Boeing gives them fantastic opportunities,” Lorenzen says, noting that Boeing offers paid tuition for eligible workers who want to earn a college degree, in addition to generous health care and dental benefits. Boeing also is known for prioritizing internal promotions, allowing workers to move up in the company, he adds. 

While many Spokane Valley Tech students step directly into full-time manufacturing roles during or immediately after their senior year, other students use the school's technical foundation as a launch point for higher education, Lorenzen says. Graduates regularly transitioned to community colleges, university engineering programs, or paid apprenticeships. 

Spokane Valley Tech's curriculum positions students to enter the manufacturing workforce with meaningful skills, whether they choose to begin a career right away or pursue additional credentials, he says.

In addition to Boeing, Spokane Valley Tech alumni also have been hired at companies including Starbase, Texas-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp.; Austin, Texas-based Tesla Inc.; Mountain View, California-based Google LLC; Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed Martin Corp.; and the U.S. Department of Defense, Lorenzen says.