Careers Without College can be Profitable Option

June 8
Careers without college can be profitable option

On-the-job experience is often necessary.

From the Northeast Pennsylvania, Times Leader Homepage

By Rory Sweeneyrsweeney@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

Alli Owens’ formal education stopped at high school graduation, but she’s been gaining experience at her job ever since she started at age 12.

Racecar driver Alli Owens talks to electrician apprentices at the IBEW Local 163 hall in Hanover Township.

Fred Adams/For The Times Leader

It’s fitting, then, that the racecar driver’s sponsor is a coalition of the National Electrical Contractors Association and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which entice high school grads into electrical trades with an “earning while you’re learning” appeal.

In fact, trainees will earn perhaps $150,000 over their 5-year apprenticeship, according to John Nadolny, the training director for IBEW Local Union 163 in Hanover Township. After that, work through the union is guaranteed to be at least $30 per hour. “All in all, it’s a great career,” Nadolny said. “You can actually support a family on this.”

With high school graduation season in full swing, a new crop of former students is looking at a weak economy and considering its options. Most say they plan to continue their formal education, although there are no reliable statistics on how many actually earn a degree. But for others – including Owens, who stopped by Local 163 on Thursday to talk to apprentices before her ARCA race on Saturday at Pocono Raceway – a career without college is the way to go.

That’s what worked for Steve Bekanich, Luzerne County’s emergency management coordinator. “I basically started out as a volunteer firefighter when I was 16 years old,” he said. From there, he volunteered as an emergency medical technician before beginning work at the county after graduating from high school in 1988. By 1993, he had switched to the county’s Emergency Management Agency and became director in 2006.

“I’ve attended thousands of hours of training, but I don’t have a formal degree. A lot of the training we do is on the job, or work provided,” he said. “There is room for advancement if you do your job well and you continue the training. We train constantly, so it all hinges on how hard you’re willing to work.”

Becoming a police officer requires a bit more formal training, but the Act 120 training can be accomplished within 22 weeks, according to Gene Baidas, the director of the police academy at Lackawanna College. Going part-time, students complete the training in 11 months. Either way, he said, grads earn about 30 credits toward a criminal justice degree if they choose to pursue it, but that isn’t a requirement to landing a respected job that pays anywhere from $8 per hour to $15 per hour part time, or perhaps $35,000 full-time at larger departments.

“In our area, the majority of the chiefs of police basically just have their (Act) 120 (training),” Baidas said. “Even in law enforcement, some of the better jobs, you still do need an associate’s degree. … It’s up to the individual. If they want to work and really do a good job, it’s up to them.”

Careers without college are often predicated on experience. Electrical apprentices must accumulate 8,000 hours on the job; police need 785� hours of training. Other non-degree jobs that pay the bills, such as truck driving and health care, have their own certification or licensing requirements.

Even agriculture can require some in-class bookwork. “Families are much more encouraging of their children … to go through college because there are so many new things out there … that can only help the future of the farm,” said Mark O’Neill, media relations director for the state Farm Bureau. Still, farming is a calling, he said. “If it’s just for a paycheck, I don’t recommend it,” he said. “You really have to have a connection to the farming life to make it a career.”

Making something you enjoy pay off is the entrepreneurial spirit that’s helped Tony Hudak and Chip Sorber find financial rewards as hunting guides. “I actually make more money guiding than I do contracting, pound for pound,” said Hudak, whose full-time job is contracting. He makes about 1� times more in six days leading hunters around private lands looking for gobblers “than banging nails.”

Sorber, a retired school teacher, has parlayed a lifetime of hunting into a part-time business guiding hunters to bobcats. He had hunted the cats before it was banned for about 20 years, and would note their locations while running coyotes with his dogs. When the ban was lifted, “nobody knew how to hunt bobcats,” he said, so he put his name on a list of guides. People who were awarded hunting tags called him.

“Word of mouth is basically how I do it today. Matter of fact, I get a lot of calls. I turn down more than I take,” he said, noting that he charges $1,000 for a cat, or $100 per day. “It’s not really the money factor,” he said. “It’s part of it,” but it’s more about finding a way to enjoy the thrill of the hunt and the experience even though “I can’t really shoot the bobcat anyway because I don’t have a tag.”

Hudak charges $250 per day “win, lose or draw” for his service, transportation and access to the land, but guiding is more about “somebody who’s spent the time,” he said. “In my opinion, being a good guide is somebody who knows their area, knows how the animal is going to react.”

He got that experience by forsaking his chance at college. “The reason I didn’t go is I just had a hard time with my schooling in high school,” because he missed a lot while he was out hunting and fishing, he said.

“There’s times when I stop and think I wonder where I would have been” had he gone to college, Hudak said.

But not often: “I’m happy with the way it’s worked out.”

Rory Sweeney, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7418.