Duplicating a number of corporate and educational partnerships, IKON Office Solutions recently opened a high-speed, digital copier training center at the William M. Davies, Jr. Career & Technical High School. The center will be used to train IKON employees as well as students and faculty of Davies High School. The partnership is among 15 at the school, which include companies like DuPont, General Motors, Midas and Sony.
“This is a win-win situation for IKON and the school,” said George Brew, desktop publishing instructor at Davies. “Students get trained on state-of-the-art equipment and IKON gets an employee training center.”
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The partnership was celebrated last week with a ribbon cutting at the center, located in the lower level of the Lincoln school. The center contains seven high-speed duplicators, digital copiers and networked printing and binding systems valued at more than $500,000. Two IKON employees will operate the center and train people on how to run the equipment.
Brew said the idea for the partnership was born two years ago when an IKON salesman wanted to lease a copier to the school.
“I told him ‘what do you think about a partnership instead?'” Brew said.
“After giving IKON a tour of what we offer and showing IKON the other partnerships we have here they were impressed, to say the least.”
After much negotiating, IKON took over a former auto career shop space and with the help of the Business and Computer Technology Department they set up the center and planned a curriculum >for students.
“This is a way for us to get our students working on equipment this school would never be able to afford,” said Stephanie L. Sullivan, business/education partnership specialist at Davies.
“Even if we could afford this equipment we wouldn’t want to buy it, because technological advances are constantly replacing them.”
She said with the partnership, it’s IKON that is replacing the equipment. Along with being a place to train students, the school will print all of its materials at the center. She is quick to point out that IKON is also benefiting from the arrangement. The center is a place for the company to train technicians and sales representatives on new machines.
Michael J. Cintolo, president of IKON’s Rhode Island/Southeastern Massachusetts offices, said it’s a rare opportunity that his company could not pass up. He said the center is good for training employees in “facilities management.” When that occurs IKON is contracted by a company to operate a copying center within the company. By training the people for the center at Davies, “We can avoid training people in those sites, which is an unprofessional way to do business,” he said.
Cintolo spoke of the importance of investing in the future, which for him could mean his company’s future. By training students on the machines and familiarizing them with the company, IKON is recruiting potential employees.
“This is a natural pipeline for us to find people,” he said. “In this job market it is hard to find qualified employees, which makes this a big incentive for us. It is an investment in our own employee base.”
He said IKON has 270 employees in his territory and 35,000 world-wide, and the numbers are growing. He believes that there will be a greater need for more qualified employees in the future for his company and the industry in general. Sullivan said that many companies have expressed interest in partnerships, but not all meet the school’s requirements.
“We have a lot of companies that would like to create a partnership with us, because of the advantage for them of having a place for them to put equipment. But, we just look for industries that are growing and will create jobs for our students,” she said. “That’s the bottom line.”
