Students can get a ‘StrongStart’ in manufacturing with HyFlex
Knightstown-based HyFlex is making more than just aggregation pumps that can be found in places like Disney theme parks and the Eiffel Tower. They are making the next generation of skilled manufacturers.
Shelby Mills, the fourth generation of her family to work in the local factory, helped develop the StrongStart Program to bring high school students into the industry.
There was a push in the 1990s and 2000s – the Millennial and Gen Z eras – that said every high school student needed to go to college if they wanted to earn enough money to live comfortably later in life.
That push to four-year college degrees came with a cost of more than $1.74 trillion in U.S. student loan debt. It also moved teens away from potential careers like plumbing, electrical, carpentry, welding and manufacturing.
“We’re seeing a huge gap in trade skills,” she said. “We are struggling to find qualified workers that have trade skill knowledge and want to work in the trade skills.”
HyFlex is not the only company feeling that pain. It is industry-wide.
“What’s been really amazing is we are starting to see a shift back into vocational schools and technical skills and technical knowledge. Vocational schools are growing and that is awesome,” she said. “We are missing those skills. It is those skilled workers who allow companies like HyFlex to be able to operate and go forward. It allows places like Honda and Toyota to build their cars, it allows Elon Musk to be able to build his rockets. You have to have skilled labor workers to be able to build the machinery we all use every single day.”
Giving them a StrongStart
HyFlex’s StrongStart vocational program began in early 2024.
“We’ve had students that were in vocational programs come before. But this has been the first year that we had a really large push in that we are reaching out to the schools to find good students,” Shelby said.
The program gives high school workers specialized MIG welding training, exposure to the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and bridges the gap between classroom theory and real-life practice.
Students can also earn a certificate of completion if they meet all of the program requirements.
“They’ll be able to come out of high school already set up for good interviews, for good job opportunities,” Shelby said. “That’s really what I wanted to focus on when we were thinking about starting this program – giving high school students the opportunity to come out of high school with real-world experience that they can offer to real-world employers.”
HyFlex President Allen Mills supports the StrongStart Program because he truly believes that the high school students that are in today’s vocational programs are the future of the manufacturing industry.
“They are going to be what allows places like HyFlex – that are a little smaller and in more rural areas – be able to grow and compete with some of the bigger communities,” Shelby said.
Shelby co-leads the StrongStart program with Levi Alexander.
“The program for HyFlex is looking for students that are looking for a long-term career in manufacturing that will require a creative approach to fabrication and eye for detail, along a desire for a challenge,” Alexander said.
With StrongStart, HyFlex can develop their talent towards the company’s specific needs.
Students in the program are under no obligation to take a job at HyFlex after they are done, however.
The first three StrongStart students last winter were from Whitewater Career Center from Connersville, Walker Career Center from Indianapolis and the Anderson Career Center.
HyFlex hired the Whitewater and Anderson students as welders. The Walker student went to work full-time at another manufacturer.
HyFlex Marketing Manager Tim Riethmiller said the company will have four student openings in the second semester. The idea is that the career center students will already have some manufacturing knowledge established when they apply and won’t be overwhelmed.
“This next semester, outside of welding, we are hoping to bring in a student or two really interested in machining,” Riethmiller said.
HyFlex hopes to get applicants from the New Castle Career Center now that the 2024-2025 school year has started.
Learn more about the StrongStart program at https://www.hyflexmfg.com/strong-start.
HyFlex history, future growth
HyFlex has been a part of the Henry County landscape and economy for 60 years.
Earnest Mills started the company from his barn in Straughn in 1964 as a secondary business while he wasn’t farming.
It was the first of many barns that would serve HyFlex until the company moved to Troy Avenue in New Castle around 2006.
The company originally made scissor-lifts that went on the back of mobile trucks. In the 1970s, HyFlex began making slurry pumps and Earnest’s son, Ben, got more involved with the company.
Ben’s son, Allen Mills, is the current president of HyFlex. Allen graduated from Purdue University in the late ‘90s with the drive to make HyFlex a successful community-focused factory.
Under Allen Mills, HyFlex started contract direct-to-sales work. Modern-day HyFlex is built on its pump department.
HyFlex moved to its current location at 8774 State Road 109 in Knightstown in 2013.
They do about 500 jobs each week.
Shelby said HyFlex’s next step in growth will be adding to its Knightstown building.
“Of course, to be able to do that, we have to be able to provide people for it,” she said. “That’s where the StrongStart program comes in. Being able to get in some qualified individuals that already have some sort of training, and just be able to give them that extra little bit of ‘here’s what you would actually do in a real manufacturing setting.’”
Another goal of StrongStart is to find future workers who appreciate the “localness” and sense of community within small companies like HyFlex.
“Here, we know who you are. We know what kind of quality work you can produce,” Shelby said, whereas factory workers at larger shops might get lost in the crowd.
HyFlex has between 70 and 80 employees, counting workers on the shop floor and workers in the office.
The Knightstown factory also extends training opportunities to its current workforce, not just prospective new hires.
Shelby said the company focuses on the drive and the desire to learn.
During a tour of the shop, Shelby showed off a robotic welder they use for training.
“Anyone who’s interested, if we have an open position, we send them off to Lincoln Electric for their secondary training, which is all of the specifications and all of the intricacies of the robot. We send them there and we fully pay for that,” she said. “In a weld shop, especially this small, to offer robotic welding is a really big deal.”
Learn more about HyFlex at www.hyflexcorp.com.
This story was produced as part of the Higher Education Media Fellowship. The Fellowship supports reporting on career and technical education. It is administered by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars and funded by the ECMC Foundation.
– Story by Travis Weik (Editor@TheCourierTimes.com) of The Courier-Times. Read more local stories at TheCourierTimes.com.
