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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (July 17, 2015)
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | July 17, 2015 | PAGE 5 Painters and tapers training center hires Phelps as new coordinator Jim Phelps is the new appren- After college he moved to ticeship coordinator at the Hawaii to teach. His brother Painters & Drywall Finishers went with him, and together Regional Training Cen- they co-owned a suc- ter. He succeeds Bill cessful remodeling and Regan, who retired (see construction company. article below). Phelps recently de- Phelps, 45, was the cided to return to the construction and main- mainland to accommo- tenance training admin- date his growing family. istrator at Hawaiian During a job search, he Electric Co., where he saw that the Painters oversaw a program of and Tapers apprentice- Jim Phelps 250 apprentices train- ship program in Oregon ing to be outside line- was looking for a new men. Prior to that he taught coordinator. school in Hawaii for nearly 10 “I saw what they were doing years. He left the classroom for here and I was very impressed,” a job designing and developing he said. curriculum for the Hawaiian Phelps says he’s still in a bit school district. That led to the of a learning curve for the paint- position at Hawaiian Electric. ing industry, but it’s been made “My education path and my much easier because of the construction path, it all came to- knowledgeable staff that’s al- gether,” he said. ready in place—office manager A native of Anchorage, Joanne Nordquist, secretary Alaska, Phelps followed in his Connie Benson, and full-time father’s footsteps as a school instructor Harry Kalin. teacher. “My father was an edu- “They are fantastic,” he said. cator, and he built homes in the “I call us the Core 4.” summer,” he said. “As a kid, I Phelps takes over a 7,440 would help him build houses. I square-foot training center that learned alot from him.” features a state-of-the-art blast- Phelps received an academic ing booth to teach sandblasting, scholarship to the University of a full spray booth, and the latest South Dakota, where he earned model virtual spray machine, a bachelor’s degree in elemen- which simulutes and scores how tary and secondary education. well you apply paint to a surface. New painters and tapers apprenticeship coordinator Jim Phelps gets acquainted with the state-of-the-art training center in Northeast Portland. Kalin and seven part-time in- structors (all journeyman mem- bers of Painters and Drywall Finishers Local 10), teach all the nuances of faux finishes, and a couple instructors even teach the lost art of paint color mixing (most of which is now comput- erized). On the drywall finishing side there are structural wall mock- ups and rolling modules that feature every interior angle and curve known. “I feel very fortunate to be coming in at this time, when this is all coming together,” Phelps said. “We have powerful train- ing tools here—things that not many other training centers have. I tip my hat to the JATC board for that.” Phelps says his primary goal will be to make apprentices and Longtime Local 10 member Bill Regan retires as apprentice coordinator Bill Regan has retired as appren- ticeship coordinator for the Painters & Tapers Regional Training Center. Regan, 62, has been the coor- dinator since 2002, where he has trained thousands of men and women to be skilled painters, drywall finishers, and reliable workers. “A good portion of my job was to try to give people a sense of accomplishment,” he said. Some promising apprentices never pan out, he said, while others that you thought would never make it turn out to be stel- lar. A graduate of Clackamas High School, Regan joined Painters Local 10 in 1973. He was attending community col- lege to get into the electronics and telecommunications field when he realized he didn’t like being inside all the time. He knew some guys from a neighborhood tavern he fre- quented in Northwest Portland who were bridge painters. “They worked eight to nine The 100th anniver- months a year and made sary booklet of Painters lots of money,” he said. Local 10 credits finan- “That sounded pretty cial secretary Regan good to me.” and business rep John Regan worked both Kirkpatrick for over- in commercial and in- seeing “our miraculous dustrial painting during recovery.” a time when there were As apprenticeship more than 100 union coordinator, Regan shops. He was active in Bill Regan oversaw a staff of one the union, and in 1992 was elected financial secretary. full time instructor, four part- In that position, Regan was a time instructors, and an office trustee on both the Painters and manager. He was involved in Drywall Finishers joint appren- the formation of the Painters ticeship training committees. In Union Management Partnership those days, the committees (PUMP) in 2004 and the ac- leased a building in Northeast companying Safety Training Portland to house their training Awards Recognitions (STAR) center. program, which gives bonuses Just a few years prior, in the to painters who enroll in contin- late 1980s, a poor economy and uing education classes. the rise of double-breasted Regan was active with the ap- shops (contractors who bid prenticeship coordinators group, work both union and nonunion), where coordinators from all caused membership to tumble. crafts meet regularly to share It got so bad that the training ideas about training, recruit- program was forced to shut ment, and to discuss other issues down. It re-opened a few years and concerns. later, and thrived in the boom Regan also played a large role years of the 1990s. in the purchase of the current training center. “The committees had talked for years about buying a build- ing,” Regan said. “But it never materialized.” That changed following the Great Recession of 2008. With the economy in recovery mode and the real estate market still soft, the Painters JATC decided the time was right to buy a building. “We spent a couple of years looking at commercial prop- erty,” Regan said. In 2012, a real estate agent showed them a building at 135th and NE Whitaker—just a few blocks from where they were renting space. They bought the building. Regan said training definitely has changed over the years. To- day there are virtual painting ma- chines, and paint is mixed by computers. “Six-dollar-a-gallon paint now costs $600 a gallon,” he said jokingly. In retirement Regan will spend more time with his wife Carole, and work on his boat and a vintage Austin Healy. journey workers the best that they can be. The training center offers continuing education classes for journey-level painters and tapers. “I want to keep this going,” he said. “We are never too old to stop learning new skills.” Phelps lives in Vancouver, Wash., with his wife and two children, ages 5 and 2. Apprenticeship Open The Oregon/SW Washington Painters JATC, and the Ore- gon/SW Washington Drywall Finishers JATC, are accepting applications for new appren- tices. Currently there is a shortage of workers in the trades, so finding a job shouldn’t be difficult. The apprenticeship consists of 6,000 hours of on-the-job training, and an additional 432 hours of related classroom in- struction. Related training is usually conducted in the evening and on Saturdays, on the apprentice’s own time. Typically it takes three years to complete the program. Ap- prentices are paid 70 percent of journeyman wages, plus benefits, while they learn. Applications can be made in person Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (closed dur- ing the noon hour). The train- ing center is located at 13521 NE Whitaker Way, Portland. That’s two blocks north of Sandy Blvd., near the Costco store. For more information, call 503-287-4856.
