McDonnell Douglas Gets Grant to Retrain Workers

More than 1,600 McDonnell Douglas employees will be retrained on new job skills under a $992,600 award by the California Employment Training Panel.

Production workers at McDonnell Douglas’ Space and Defense Systems facilities in Huntington Beach and Monrovia will each receive more than 200 hours of training, with an emphasis on inspection and testing. Products made by workers with those skills are less likely to be rejected for production flaws, the company said.

The goal of the program is to strengthen employees’ job skills to enhance McDonnell Douglas’ competitiveness and its role as an employer in California. The company’s space and defense unit manufactures major components of the International Space Station as well as military command, control, communications, computer and intelligence systems.

CETP is a state agency, supported by business and labor, that reimburses California employers for training new employees and retraining current workers. Eligible companies are generally those that face out-of-state competition.(John O’Dell)