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This is not your father’s factory

News & Announcements / 3 minutes of reading /

$1,000 scholarship encourages youth to look again at manufacturing jobs. 

The roots of York Elec­tric run back to an era, about 78 years ago, when YEC pri­mar­i­ly was a rur­al elec­tric pow­er provider.

Today, YEC still proud­ly serves many rur­al homes and farms. We also serve plen­ty of sub­ur­ban devel­op­ments and indus­tries that have put their own roots down here. All along, we’ve been about improv­ing the lives of our mem­bers. Com­mu­ni­ty com­mit­ment is one of YEC’s core val­ues.

YEC serves sev­er­al high-tech indus­tries, includ­ing Sil­cotech Car­oli­nas and Blues­tar Sil­i­cones. We’re proud to call these indus­tries mem­bers, too. Not only do these com­pa­nies buy large amounts of pow­er, which helps sta­bi­lize the rates that all mem­ber class­es pay, they also pro­vide liveli­hoods for many of our res­i­den­tial mem­bers and oth­er local res­i­dents.

Paul Basha, YEC President and Chief Executive Officer
Paul Basha
Pres­i­dent and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer

That’s why York Elec­tric works hard to attract and retain these indus­tries. YEC staff and board mem­bers serve on the board of York Coun­ty Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment (YCED).

But if you’re remem­ber­ing the tex­tile plants of yes­ter­year, look again: Today’s man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­nies are, to para­phrase an old Oldsmo­bile com­mer­cial, “not your father’s fac­to­ry.”

As YCED Direc­tor David Swen­son notes, “Man­u­fac­tur­ing employ­ment in York Coun­ty remains strong at 12 per­cent of our labor force and has grown by 1,900 jobs over the past few years. The man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor pro­vides a good annu­al aver­age wage at almost $60,000 and in 2016 this sec­tor con­tributed the largest por­tion of our local econ­o­my with over $1.8 bil­lion in goods and ser­vices pro­duced in York Coun­ty. The key fac­tor to man­u­fac­tur­ing employ­ees get­ting a good job and achiev­ing greater wealth is achiev­ing a qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion.”

To help, YEC is upgrad­ing our annu­al York Tech Schol­ar­ships. We’ll now offer one $1,000 schol­ar­ship to a stu­dent seek­ing a degree in a STEM (sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, engi­neer­ing and math) field. See the ad on the next page for details.

 

Paul Basha

Paul Basha
Pres­i­dent and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer

Progress personified

YEC Member, Rhonda Belton
Pho­to by Wal­ter All­read

YEC mem­ber Rhon­da Bel­ton per­son­i­fies the change in our ser­vice area. Raised on a farm in the Smith’s Turnout com­mu­ni­ty on the York-Chester coun­ty line, she’s now a pro­duc­tion sched­uler at Blues­tar Sil­i­cones, which her co-op serves. “Grow­ing up, a lot of the man­u­fac­tur­ing plants, they most­ly offered pro­duc­tion jobs,” Bel­ton says. “There are a lot more jobs today as far as office per­son­nel and oth­er areas. We have posi­tions in qual­i­ty labs, R&D, plus tech­ni­cians and sci­en­tists. It’s a mix­ture.” In her data-dri­ven posi­tion, Bel­ton’s fin­ger rests right on the pulse of plant. “We stay pret­ty busy! I’m see­ing a lot of growth. There have been a lot of new hires in the R&D depart­ment and pro­duc­tion to help meet the cus­tomer demand for the new prod­ucts.”
Relat­ed Top­ics:
Schol­ar­ships
Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment 
Local Work­force Wins Through Coop­er­a­tion

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