Eric Anstadt: Electrical Ambassador & Klein Tools Collector

00:00:00 Sumer Beatty: Welcome to Tomorrow Makers, where we explore how we learn live, work, and play now and in the future. I'm Sumer Beatty. 00:00:11 Carlos Ramos: And I'm Carlos Ramos. Electrifying today. 00:00:15 Sumer Beatty: Oh my goodness. Yeah, that's a good word for it. Very appropriate. We're here today with Eric Anstadt and he is one of our professors in electrical technology. 00:00:24 Carlos Ramos: Just a master at walking us through the electrical program. As we're taking this audio tour, I'm like, I'm there. 00:00:32 Sumer Beatty: Yeah, it did feel like we were actually in a lab walking around, checking out all of the spaces and he knows it top and bottom and inside out. 00:00:39 Carlos Ramos: And so you can get this experience. Obviously, listen to the podcast. You're gonna get that audio tour. But you can come to the Open House, you can come for a personal tour. There's different ways to get here, but definitely. Get here. 00:00:51 Sumer Beatty: Yes. So pct.edu/visit if you wanna see all the visit options, but definitely check this out. I think you're gonna love to hear from Eric. He is so passionate about everything to do with electrical. He's got a cool tool collection he is gonna tell us about. You'll learn about what a golden ticket is. If you don't know what that is, that's something to stick around for. So lots of goodies. 00:01:13 Carlos Ramos: Alright, well let's let Eric do the talking. 00:01:15 Sumer Beatty: Sounds good. We are here today with Eric Anstadt. He's our Assistant Professor of Electrical Technology and Occupations. 00:01:30 Eric Anstadt: Correct. 00:01:31 Sumer Beatty: Welcome. 00:01:31 Eric Anstadt: Thank you for having me. 00:01:33 Sumer Beatty: It's been a long time coming. I think you've been a recommended podcast guest a couple times now, so we're so happy you're here. 00:01:39 Eric Anstadt: I'm not sure who recommends me, but huh, I guess they see something that I don't. 00:01:45 Sumer Beatty: I doubt that. 00:01:46 Eric Anstadt: Okay. 00:01:46 Sumer Beatty: I doubt that. A good place to start is you had took a unique pathway to Penn College. 00:01:53 Eric Anstadt: Yes. I, I'm not your typical college student. I left high school in 1995 and I went to Penn State. And I wasn't ready for Penn State. Penn State, the, the culture and the availability of, you know, parties and that kind of stuff. And honestly, I didn't thrive. And so I left Penn State, and I went and got scared straight out working for a while. So I worked in a, shipping and receiving department at a furniture company and did really well there. And then I went on to sell an ice cream. So I sold ice cream for about. 10 years door to door. And the whole time I was doing that, I was also working a little bit on the side doing electrical work. And one day I met this lady who said, you can't work 14 hours a day anymore. And she wanted me to go back to school to get educated. So I came to Penn College to do my sort of side gig, which was electrical. 00:03:01 Sumer Beatty: Smart lady. I'll say that. 00:03:03 Eric Anstadt: Yeah. She's pretty smart. 00:03:04 Sumer Beatty: Yeah. Yeah. Good. Talk to us about being scared straight. 00:03:09 Eric Anstadt: When you go into the working world, especially into more menial jobs, you can see what your future looks like by looking at the people around you. And you look around at the people that are doing what you're doing, but are 10, 15, 20 years, 30 years older than you. And you think to yourself, do you want to be in that position or do I want to be something different when I'm that age? So that was kind of the pathway for me to get scared straight, and I didn't want to be that person. 00:03:38 Sumer Beatty: So you came to Penn College? 00:03:40 Eric Anstadt: I came to Penn College at 26. 00:03:43 Sumer Beatty: What was that like? 00:03:44 Eric Anstadt: It was interesting. I was in a classroom full of students from 17 and and 18 mostly, and I was the old man in the class. But being the old man in the class comes with some good parts too. The students look up to you. If you're a good student, you can set the standard for the class and give it a nice baseline. And from a teaching standpoint, I always appreciate when I have one or two students in a class that are older or are GI students that are coming back, getting outta military service. 00:04:17 Sumer Beatty: It does change the whole tempo of the classroom.And it sounds like you were in just a better head space having had the experience you had. 00:04:25 Eric Anstadt: Absolutely. When I came back to college, I was here for college. I was here to learn. I was not here to party any longer or to do other things. I had a goal in mind, and that was to get through here and to get a job. 00:04:40 Sumer Beatty: So you took your, we'll say, side hustle and kind of made it your career. 00:04:45 Eric Anstadt: Correct. 00:04:46 Sumer Beatty: And it sounds like electrical was something you had a passion for, you were enjoying doing. 00:04:51 Eric Anstadt: Yes. So I, I had started doing electrical work clear back when my grandfather and my father and I would do things around the farm. And then we started renovating houses with a friend of mine and I started doing electrical work there. And it just so happened that his uncle owned one of the bigger companies here in Williamsport, and he told me if I came here and got educated, he would guarantee me a job. So I had a job before I even started, which was a good position to be in. 00:05:19 Carlos Ramos: So why electrical in the first place? When did that spark hit you? 00:05:26 Eric Anstadt: I've always been a hands-on person. So electrical in general is a very hands-on career path. No matter what you do with your electrical career, whether you stay in construction or you do controls, it's always a hands-on activity. It's not where you have to just sit behind a desk. I like that aspect of it. Also, let's be honest, when you look at the pay, when you look at the pay across the trades, electrical is always in the top 3, 4, 5 of the highest paid trades. So, you know, I wanted to work with my hands and I wanted to be well compensated for doing what I did. 00:06:03 Sumer Beatty: So how did that interest in electrical combine with teaching? 00:06:07 Eric Anstadt: When I was a student here at the school, I led a study group and my study group took students that wouldn't have been as successful and made them successful and I didn't notice it at the time, but others noticed it, people that were professors. And there are still a few professors left in our department from when I was going through here as a student. So when a job came open, I got a phone call and I told the person, I said, I'm not qualified to do that. And he goes, you apply. You let me worry about your qualifications. He said, you did it while you were here without knowing that you did it. Come back and do it for real now. 00:06:50 Sumer Beatty: And what did that feel like as a student knowing that you were helping those around you and elevate them and their skillsets? 00:06:58 Eric Anstadt: Well, honestly, I didn't really feel it as a student. It was just my buddy group and we collaborated together. We worked together. We would run study sessions on nights before tests. They'd all come to my house 'cause I lived off campus with my wife at the time. And we would all hang out and study for the test. And it just seemed like our scores went higher and higher and higher as the semester went. And it really worked out well. So that was the first semester. And we did the same thing through four semesters. And I'm still really good friends with everybody I went to school here with. A friend of mine, Brandon, lives out in South Hampton, Long Island. He came in here to Penn College because nobody in Long Island offered the education he wanted. So he came here and he ended up living with us, my wife and I, in our basement for a year. And he and I are still the best of friends. I go out and see him a couple times a year. He has a big old boat, and we go tuna fishing. 00:07:57 Sumer Beatty: That's an amazing story. I love it. 00:07:59 Eric Anstadt: Oh, it's a story. 00:08:00 Sumer Beatty: Oh, I, there's more, you're not telling us too, it sounds like, but we can leave those for side conversations. 00:08:06 Carlos Ramos: Probably best left that way. 00:08:08 Sumer Beatty: Yeah. Okay. 00:08:09 Carlos Ramos: Alright. So you graduate from Penn College? Yes. And you've got, it looks like about 10 years in industry. 00:08:14 Eric Anstadt: Yep. So I worked for Turnkey Electric here in Williamsport for the majority of my career. They were a great company. They did a lot of commercial work, high end residential. We would only get into million dollar plus houses, and I worked with some really great guys there. And the, the thing that I always appreciated with the people that I worked with there is they were always willing to teach. Here at the school. We can only give you 40% of what you need to know. You have to learn the other 60% when you hit the field. We can set the foundation, but for you to truly excel, you have to keep on learning. And to surround yourself with people like a Frank Huff or a Kevin Dietrich that worked for Turnkey or a Gordy Newland, that are willing to take the time and invest in you and continue to teach you the whole time you're working there, that is really what had set me up for success. 00:09:10 Carlos Ramos: And are you still in industry? 00:09:11 Eric Anstadt: I am not. My wife will not let me work, and it's a closely guarded secret that I do electrical work. Otherwise, everybody asks you to come over to their house and fix something, which I do on occasion, but only for very specific people. 00:09:26 Sumer Beatty: Okay. So it sounds like if you're listening and you might wanna ask for this favor, you should check with his wife first. Yes. She's made... 00:09:33 Eric Anstadt: She's, she's the clearing house. 00:09:34 Sumer Beatty: Okay. Got it. 00:09:36 Carlos Ramos: We'll put her contact information in the show notes. 00:09:38 Sumer Beatty: Yeah. Her will be in the show notes. 00:09:38 Eric Anstadt: Yeah, you can do that. I'll, I'll hand it out to you. 00:09:44 Sumer Beatty: So the electrical programs at Penn College are always some of the first to fill up. 00:09:49 Eric Anstadt: Yes. 00:09:49 Sumer Beatty: Why do you think that is? 00:09:51 Eric Anstadt: Well. In today's climate, the trades are in demand. For so long, we had generation after generation, after generation of people that were not considered really successful unless they went to a four year college and got a bachelor's degree in communications or something else. And so for a long time, the trades were kind of menialized and only the leftovers seemed to go into the trades. But what it's done is it's bred out an entire multiple generations of tradespeople, people that can actually fix things with their hands. Whether you be a welder, a plumber, an electrician, it doesn't matter which of the trades you're in, they're all falling under the same boat. Well, now, 40 years later, all these older gentlemen are retiring and there is a huge skills gap right now. With the skills gap, there's 20, 25 years of just a few people that knew what to do and how to do it. Whereas now, they need those people and we are producing them. The reason that we fill up is simply, well, that's one of the aspects of it, is the trades gap. But then there's other aspects too. I mean, our department does recruit. We go out to schools and recruit. But also, we give great tours. Our faculty over there in the electrical department, we all work really well together. You have your leaders in the department like Kevin Yokitis, he has formed a great team. We work under an awesome assistant, Dean Stacey Hampton. And all of that combined has. Made us have the ability to be very cordial and nice to each other. And when people come there, they see it and they want to be a part of it. It's sort of like a large family. 00:11:48 Carlos Ramos: There's definitely an energy there, within the, the faculty and the students. 00:11:53 Eric Anstadt: Yeah, we have a good time. We have a good time, but you can have a good time and still be educational at the same time. 00:12:00 Sumer Beatty: And I'm sure the amazing labs, don't hurt. 00:12:03 Eric Anstadt: Absolutely. 00:12:04 Sumer Beatty: In decision making process. 00:12:05 Eric Anstadt: During Covid, we had already gotten a grant, so we did a complete rehab of our building. Previous to that, our building looked like, like a 1970s Burger King. When you walked into the inside, the color scheme and everything was just, it was not modern. And some of the equipment that was there, I think had been there since just past World War II. In 2020, we completely demoed everything and we bought pretty much all new equipment for the space. Since 2020, we have put another addition on to where students are able to work in an industrial lab in an actual industrial setting. Working off JLG lifts, working up in the ceiling. Our students did or are going to do the majority of the work, fitting that, building out. We'd just got enough done that we could get an occupancy permit. So minimal electrical and HVAC and some life safety stuff. Our students are gonna do the rest. 00:13:07 Sumer Beatty: Are we talking about in lab or in? 00:13:10 Eric Anstadt: In lab. 00:13:10 Sumer Beatty: Oh, okay. 00:13:11 Eric Anstadt: So in lab for our industrial class, the first round of industrial students will be building the lab for the rest of the students. We have a practical class that the practical class in their fourth semester goes out and does volunteer work, usually for nonprofits, but a lot of stuff here on campus too. So the practical class will also be helping setting the machines, getting the conduits to 'em. Now it's not gonna be the permanent end all. But now moving forward the instructor may say, well, we want to interconnect these two things now, and now they have to, the subsequent classes have to run whole different conduits and they may be reconfiguring it every other year. It's an exciting time because our space there is very practical when it comes to an industrial electrical setting. 00:14:04 Sumer Beatty: Yeah. I love that connection to real applications because they're probably running into actual problems as you do... 00:14:10 Eric Anstadt: Absolutely. 00:14:11 Sumer Beatty: ...in the field. 00:14:12 Eric Anstadt: Yep. Supply chain shortages, all the problems that we run into in the field, they're experiencing them right now. Real world learning. 00:14:20 Carlos Ramos: So as we're sitting here, we have a photo crew over in your area filming some 3D stuff for a virtual tour. Can you give us the 3D audio tour of the facilities? 00:14:34 Eric Anstadt: Absolutely. We generally in the electrical department don't do a chronological tour. We do more of a geographical tour and we tell the parents and students when they come here, don't get the deer in the headlights look when you walk into the first lab, it's a third or fourth semester class for all students. So the first room that we would go into would be the motor control lab. Motor controls: amazingly important because 55 to 60% of the electricity used in the US is consumed by a motor. So competent electricians need to know how to start, how to stop, how to reverse, and how to control motors through different scenarios. In there, we have 74 lab stations, but we cap all of our classes at 16 students, so there's usually five sections of 16 running through lots of one-on-one time with the instructor. The great part with this class is not only are you learning how to start, stop, reverse motors, but you're also learning to troubleshoot. In this lab, our advisory board has told us the students need to know how to troubleshoot and troubleshoot things accurately and quickly. Companies know, by the dollar, how much it costs for that machine to be down a minute, and they want to minimize that downtime. So what we do is after the student has it up and running, we send 'em across to Keystone for a slice of pizza. We bar 'em from the room for five minutes. Then we get in their cabinet, we start inserting problems, hidden problems, problems that are hard to find. Sometimes they're compounding problems where you fix one and it begets another problem. Their job then is to get their multimeter out and their screwdriver and figure out what we did, correct the problems, get it back up and running. And that's motor control. 00:16:25 Carlos Ramos: Do they get an extra slice of pizza when they fix it? 00:16:27 Eric Anstadt: Well, if they buy themselves an extra slice of pizza, absolutely they can have a second slice. So from that room, we seamlessly go into motor control or into the PLC lab. Motor control is all about learning how to wire it. But PLCs, or programmable logic controllers, control all aspects of our life. They control the red light that you pull up to drive to campus in the morning. They control the machine that's making the Pop Tarts at Kellogg's. They control everything. They just work in the background. But what they are is a small computer that takes a series of inputs, and it makes outputs based upon the input it sees. So traffic light example, it sees you pull up or there's an abductive sensor buried in the road. One way or the other. It knows that you pulled up. It knows to change the red light. In PLC class, what we're doing is we're taking concepts, and we are now making them into functioning programs. And it's not C++ computer programming or anything like that. It's dragging and dropping, inserting symbols. Our goal is to get power from the left hand side of the computer screen to the right. Once we get it up and running with a simple recipe, then we start adding complexities into it. At the beginning of the semester. It's very simple. I want this light to turn on when I push this push button, when I push that, when I want it to turn off. Another example of a lab that we do is a simple garage door. Most of us have a garage door at home. We know how they work. So we have pneumatic cylinders. We have buttons. We have lights. We can simulate a garage door. In that PLC class, you are going to learn the basics of PLC programming. Again, troubleshooting comes up because once you have it up and running and the instructor approves it, he's gonna send you for another slice of pizza. And we have five key switches, which each key switch has two other positions. With a simple flip of your wrist, you can insert up to 25 faults into their program, but it's not in the programming, it's in the wiring. So then they have to get their multimeter out, and they have to tell you what you did. Once they have done that. You move the keys back to where they were supposed to be. From there, we follow, we flow into our advanced PLC lab. The advanced PLC lab is introducing a new piece called an HMI, which is a human machine interface. It's basically like a blank screen. So that blank screen, we can program it to look like whatever we want. And generally the HMI. Is what the machine operator's going to be looking at. It's their controls. Whereas the laptop is more what the programmer is going to be working with. So in this classroom, we have everything on, off, and everything in between. For instance, we might not need the motor to spin at a hundred percent of its rate. If we're trying to pump fresh air in from the outside. As the CO2 levels increase, as the room's occupied more, we need to spin that motor faster to bring more outside air in, we can increase our speed through the PLC. The other interesting part with this is Allen-Bradley, who manufactures the PLC. The instructors only give the students about 60% of what they need information-wise to complete the lab. Another thing our advisory board tells us is that these students need to be able to communicate with adults on an adult level. So what we've done is we've written into our curriculum that for certain labs, they have to call Allen-Bradley's technical support line to get the other 40% of what they need to complete the lab. They know that they're calling, they set up an account, it's free, and Allen-Bradley's waiting for their calls. 00:20:19 Carlos Ramos: That is amazing. We hear about industry partnerships all the time, but to have that embedded like that... 00:20:24 Eric Anstadt: Yes. 00:20:25 Carlos Ramos: ...that's incredible. 00:20:25 Eric Anstadt: And some of the older Allen-Bradley folks that have been there for a while, they know exactly what labs you're doing. They know what the solution is, but they still do a good job of talking you through it. 00:20:37 Sumer Beatty: Problem solving at its best. 00:20:39 Eric Anstadt: Absolutely, because when you hit the field, if you don't know the answer, you're gonna ask the person next to you. If they don't know the answer, today's student is going to Google it, and in fact, Google might be their first option. When all those fail, it's technical support time. So we make you call technical support. From there, that room, we flow out and we go into our construction labs. Our construction labs look mostly like what everybody's going to expect to see when they come to a campus to do an electrical tour. Wood studs, lab stations, your lab stations yours for the entire semester. We have three labs, one with 36, 1 with 38, and one with 32 lab stations. So we can run five sections of 16 to keep our numbers where we need them. Our construction labs are first semester you work with Romex, house wiring, turning things on, turning things off, running to receptacles. Second semester, they get into more commercial work, so they have work like putting things in, conduit, running different types of raceways, transfer switches. Electrical services are in that semester, lighting, contactors, different things like that. Out of that room, we go past our toolkit and we always tell 'em that we're big partners with Klein tools and that they sell us our tools at so cheap that you can't buy 'em anywhere else cheaper, at the bookstore. So shameless plug for the toolkit. 00:22:08 Carlos Ramos: PennCollegeBooks.com. If you're a student. 00:22:10 Eric Anstadt: There you go. From there, we have our job board. Our job board is constantly changing, so we tell the students, you know, you need to look at this once a week. Our goal in our department is to continue to get between 98 and a hundred percent job placement. So we really harp on that job board and we really harp on getting them over to the fall and the spring Career Fair. So we do a lot of recruitment activities. They're coming into our department. Our goal is to allow a student to have a job even before they left, without even needing to look for one. It should come to them here. From there, we go into our machine analysis lab, which is our most expensive lab in our department. It doesn't look a whole bunch like the rest of the labs. This is our capstone class. So it's a four semester class for all of our majors. And what it does is it ties alternating current, direct current motor control, and it brings them all into one. The first half of the class, you're learning how electricity's made. You have a big three phase transformer bank, and you are changing voltages. You're getting the voltage to do what you want it to do. The second half is we're starting to spin machines. We'll take an AC motor, we'll take a DC motor, and we'll spin it. And then our motors are kind of unique in that class, in that we can take parts out. So, we can remove the field riostat once it's up and running. And when you do that, it might make a particular sound. You hear that sound, you know that you took the field rheostat out and now all of a sudden, 25 years later, you're walking through your plant that you're working at and you hear that noise and you're like, field rheostat out in one of these machines. And you've diagnosed a problem before you've ever even looked at a machine. And that's kind of our goal with that. In that class. It's the only one in our department where you have a lab partner, so it's two on the lab station at the same time, but they have to give lab reports and written English and in composition form. So most of the students like the work, don't like the lab reports. And then the last room I'll talk about is mechatronics. Mechatronics is our third major that we have at Penn College in Electrical. And it's been kind of underutilized. However, it's one of the most highly recruited jobs that we have, one of the highly recruited majors. So what mechatronics is, is a student will get like 60% of the knowledge an electrician in electrical technology will get. The other 40% of their knowledge is filled up with other things. Things like. pneumatics, plumbing, welding, machining. Because increasingly with lean manufacturing companies want one employee that can do multiple roles. They do electrical really well, but they can also do a little bit of machining. The goal of this job is if the Pop Tart machine at Kellogg's goes down at three o'clock in the morning, that person can come in, diagnose the problem, get it back up and running, even if it's just limping along, until the supply house opens at seven o'clock in the morning. The problem with mechatronics for us was that it was a decentralized program. Mechatronics was taught in the electrical building. It was taught in CAL. It was taught all over the place. So what we've done is for our two year mechatronics students, we've tried to bring them all back into our department. And so we are building a new mechatronics lab. Jack Dincher came on board two years ago. And he is revitalizing the major. He has rewritten a lot of the curriculum, made it very appropriate for today's student. And we've gone out and we've gotten donations of lots of material. One of the things that we got is a candy sorting machine. Take bulk candy and dump it in the top of this machine. It uses a vision system to separate all of the candy into different piles. You can ask it for a Kit Kat and it shoots you out a Kit Kat. You can ask it for a Snickers bar. It shoots you a Snickers. That isn't the Penn College way. You can't get it with just asking, so you have to tell it that you want the Snickers, and then it doesn't just hand it to you. It's going to drop it onto a conveyor belt. The conveyor belt's gonna run it up and around a room. Then it's going to get picked up by a robotic arm, and then the robotic arm is going to hand it to you. So there's several hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment that is all brand new and just being commissioned. Clyde, which is the candy sorting machine, was just delivered Monday of this week, and the students are already on it. They're getting ready. They're wiring. They're programming. But the nice part with it is the students will be able to manipulate the program and work on it just like they would if they were out in the field somewhere. 00:27:03 Carlos Ramos: So will this lab be an addition or is it gonna replace things like, when I think of mechatronics, I'm over in workforce development and thinking about the the rooms they have there. Is it an addition or? 00:27:15 Eric Anstadt: It is an addition. So this is for our two year program. The four year mechatronics is going to still be the same. However, some of the four year classes will probably utilize this because Jack does teach in the two year and the four year major, I believe. So it's a big addition to that department. 00:27:33 Sumer Beatty: I'm glad you brought up the four year and the two year programs. 00:27:36 Eric Anstadt: Correct. 00:27:36 Sumer Beatty:  Can you talk a little bit about the options within the electrical department as far as... I think, maybe listeners might think electrical might be an associate's degree, but there are opportunities for bachelor's degree pathways through there. 00:27:50 Eric Anstadt: Absolutely. So our electrical department runs three basic majors. The first one is Electrical Construction, what we call EB. So Electrical Construction is close your eyes, picture the electrician. It's the person that shows up at your house to do electrical work, does new construction. In addition to that, we're also trying to build the next generation of business owners. So you get business classes, you get a class on estimations because if you can't estimate as an electrician, you're not gonna be in business very long and you get business classes, things that are pretty simple, like learning how to buy insurance, learning how to do payroll, that kind of stuff. In the fourth semester, they get their practical class where they get to go out and do a lot of things on campus. I'm proud to say our electrical building over there never has a ticket go into General Services for an electrical problem. We fix everything our practical class does, and in fact, our practical class does a lot of work for GS. Our second major is Electrical Technology, and we call this kind of our flagship major. This is the one we're most known for. You are still qualified with this to go out and work as an electrician. You get a commercial and you get a residential class. So you're a fully qualified to go out and do commercial electrical work. This was the major I took. But in addition to that, you start getting into the PLC end of things, the program of logic controllers, so. As you get older, you might wanna slow down a little bit. The shoulder doesn't work as good, the hip doesn't work at all. You have four kids. You need to slow down. You need to pump the brakes. Well, the nice part with this major is it allows you to fall back on that PLC work to maybe slow your career down a little bit, but still get paid very well. And from a recruitment standpoint, employers are looking for PLC experience. That is what they want. They want the students that can do PLC work. Third major we talked about is the Mechatronics, and I explained at 60% electrical, 40% other systems. The job outlook for most mechatronic students is they're gonna go into industry and work in a facility somewhere, somewhere like Crown Cork & Seal or Kellogg's. They call 'em multi craft technicians once they get out of here. That's generally what they're known as. Those are our three, two year degrees. Our number one pathway for students to stay for a four year degree is Building Automation. So Building Automation falls under the Electrical umbrella. And what it is, is it's bringing all of the smart systems in a modern commercial building into one unit that you can manipulate. Honeywell, a company that recruits a lot of graduates, had a video out a few years ago. It showed a lady pulling into a parking lot. It scans her license plate number, her ID badge, I forget which it is, and the gate opens. The lights turn on the parking lot by her parking spot. It unlocks the front door, pulls the elevator to the first floor, turns the lights on, brings her heat in her office from 60 overnight up to 70, and it turns her computer on. You can't get more building automation than that scenario. A hundred percent job placement rate. In fact, I would go so far as to say it has 125% job placement rate, because at the career fairs, they will literally lasso these kids and pull 'em into their station and just start throwing numbers at 'em. We call it in our department, the golden ticket. All of our two year majors, all three can lead into building automation. The Mechatronics and the Electrical Technology are a little bit better pathway because you are dealing with more of what you'll be dealing with in your second half. But the Electrical Construction is adequate. You can get there. The other one that we feed is the four year Mechatronics degree. And the third one that we feed, especially for Electrical Construction students is Residential Construction Management. They do two years of Electrical, then they do two years of the Construction Management, and then they end up with a bachelor's in Residential Construction Management. 00:32:01 Carlos Ramos: For all of those options, they can take it straight through two years of their, their electrical associates and then two years of the completion degree. Can they, do they have the option of being able to take the two year completion degree in a part-time basis? 00:32:16 Eric Anstadt: The two year degree on a part-time basis, we do. We have some that do it. We, especially people that are coming back with Workforce Development and that kind of stuff. The hard part for most students to come back and do it on a part-time basis is we run mostly daytime classes. We have a few classes that run in the evenings, but we run mostly daytime shifts. So, the majority of our students, 98, 99% are full-time students, whether they're, you know, of the typical college age or whether they're over the typical college age. The oldest electrical student we had was, I think he was 63, and that was just a couple years ago. 00:32:56 Carlos Ramos: Gotta punch out with that golden ticket. 00:32:58 Eric Anstadt: I guess. 00:32:58 Sumer Beatty: So I feel like we need to include that in the name of this and everybody's going to wanna know. I also know that you probably don't need too much help with recruitment. 00:33:10 Eric Anstadt: We can always use help. Kevin Yokitis, Art Counterman, and I are pretty proactive about getting out to schools. We do multiple trips each year. In the fall, I think we did 12 high school visits. We are not scheduled to work on campus on Fridays. But generally in the fall semester and in the spring semester, we're gone at least six, seven Fridays per semester. So we get out. 00:33:34 Sumer Beatty: So knowing how popular the program is, how far in advance do you need students to make a commitment? 00:33:42 Eric Anstadt: We need students to make a commitment, I wouldn't wait any longer for a for-sure seat until the middle of October the previous year. Our construction class, I think we are capped at 20. Just the nature of the class. We can only take so many students with that practical class. In the fourth semester, we're going out to construction sites. So, the cap is 10 per class because you gotta keep an eye on people, 'cause this is for real electrical that you're working with and it's permanent installation. So we have to be really careful, have a lot of oversight. So our major I think filled in four days this year... 00:34:24 Carlos Ramos: That's crazy. 00:34:25 Eric Anstadt: ...for Electrical Construction. The Electrical Technology is always a little bit slower at filling up, but it's always full, usually by just after Christmas. 00:34:35 Sumer Beatty: That's still quite early. 00:34:36 Eric Anstadt: Quite early. Mechatronics, is a little slower at filling up, but it's usually always full by the 1st of February. 00:34:44 Carlos Ramos: And Building Automation then filled up? 00:34:47 Eric Anstadt: Yes, because a lot of students will come in as dual degree students, so they'll declare as an EL slash Building Automation students, so that freezes a seat for them. After their two years, they're guaranteed a seat in Building Automation. In the past, a lot of our students would come in and then two weeks before they'd graduate, they'd say, ah, I think I'm gonna stay for Building Automation. And they'd enroll in Building Automation and it would be fine. Those days are not happening. In the last couple years, Building Automation has been filling too. 00:35:19 Sumer Beatty: Okay, so if you're a student or a family member, supporter of a student listening, and maybe Penn College hasn't gone to the student's school, a good first step would be to come to an Open House. 00:35:31 Eric Anstadt: Open House. Yes. Our department always has. Lots of people there for Open House. The best thing I can tell you is come to campus. It is a wonderful atmosphere. It's a very welcoming place here on the campus. It's beautiful grounds. Come look at the labs. There is a stark contrast between our labs and our competitors' labs. You look at the level of technology in Penn College's labs versus others, and you're gonna see why we are number one in innovation. 00:36:02 Carlos Ramos: And you're not just imparting skills, you're imparting a deep knowledge about the field. We've got three hours in the lab, an hour in lecture on average on our campus across our programs. Does that hold up in your area? 00:36:17 Eric Anstadt: Yes. So take our residential class. Our residential class is a 90 minute lecture followed by a three hour lab twice a week. So we do a lot of hands-on education. The majority of what students learn, they learn with their hands. See one, do one, show one is an excellent model. So a lot of times you're gonna see it first in the lecture, then you're gonna do it, and sometimes you have to show the guy next to you how to do it. I'm very big on using the people around you. A very colloquial classroom is what I'm looking for. I'm looking for them to ask their friend for help, and then if their friend doesn't give them the help they need come to me. But you can always come to me first too. 00:37:02 Sumer Beatty: And that process of helping someone else solidifies your skills too. So, I mean, it's just... 00:37:06 Eric Anstadt: Absolutely. 00:37:07 Sumer Beatty: ...full circle. Yeah. You mentioned earlier that you were, your students were doing some community service projects or projects out in the community. Is there anything you have up and coming that you wanna talk about? 00:37:18 Eric Anstadt: So it's not technically my students that are doing it, it's Joe Raup and Darrin Morse. Those are our two teachers that teach in the Electrical Construction, and they teach the practical class. They did a lot of work with Little League Baseball recently with Jersey Shore's Little League, and they put power to a concession stand, rewired the concession stand completely. They put lights in dugouts, and right now they're doing a lot of stuff on campus. So the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning major is going through some changes. Also, they've gotten some lab expansions. So our electrical students are doing the majority of the electrical in their HVAC labs. So they're spending a lot of time in the BTC. Another project that's going on right now is for our practical class and for our commercial class. We have JLG lifts that were just purchased, so we're using scissor lifts in our new labs so that the students can learn in a JLG lift. The JLG lifts haven't officially been delivered yet because, General Services had a project that they wanted to do up at their Reach Road facility. So our students are in there using the JLG lifts to replace all the lighting in General Services warehouse right now. So they're upgrading from fluorescence to new LED fixtures to help with some of the lighting costs. 00:38:48 Sumer Beatty: We can't close down this conversation without talking about your Klein tools. I wanted to get into it earlier, but tell us a little bit about that. We have a really fantastic article in Penn College Magazine. You've got an amazing collection of tools. How did all of that start, and how did we find out about it? 00:39:07 Eric Anstadt: I don't know how you found out about it, but... so I have a room in my basement that my wife's not allowed to know about, but she does know about it. I get home before she does, so I get all the eBay packages ahead of her. So honey, if you're listening, I'm sorry. But I have the shrine of Klein in my basement. That's what my kids call it. Klein Tools was really instrumental in the quality of their tools, is instrumental in the success of a lot of students. Klein Tools has helped our department immensely. We get like six to $7,000 worth of donations out of Klein Tools every year for our school. And so my, my love affair, I guess, I don't know what you'd call it, but it started when I started doing electrical work. They're the first name in linesman's pliers, which is, that's the bread and butter tool for any electrician. Starts with one, and then you need one for the door of the truck, and then pretty soon it's, you need three pair and then four pair, and then five pair. And then you look and you find this date code on the inside of the handles. And you're like, wonder what that means? So you Google it. And you figure out that they stamp dates onto their linesman's multipliers. Well then you find out they've been in business since 1857 and you get this wild idea that, man, I'd like to have a pair from every year of manufacturing. So, 835 pair at last count. later I have a couple pairs of linesman pliers. My oldest ones are, they're before 1897. You can't date them once they get to 1897. Through that and being active on Facebook, the Klein family asked me if I'd start moderating all of their Facebook pages. So I admin all of Klein's Facebook pages for them. And I have a collection of very unique stuff. I hunt down and track the stuff you can't buy. So I've drove as far as Wisconsin, Ottawa, Canada, Huntsville, Alabama, and Richmond, Virginia in pursuit of buying the things that you can't just go out and buy. So I have a room in my basement that's completely dedicated to tools. 00:41:28 Sumer Beatty: A lot of orange. 00:41:29 Eric Anstadt: A lot of orange. Yes. 00:41:31 Sumer Beatty: How has the quality changed over the year? 00:41:34 Eric Anstadt: I can take that pair of linesman's pliers from 1897, lay 'em right next to a pair today, and you can't tell the difference. 00:41:42 Sumer Beatty: Okay. That's amazing. 00:41:43 Eric Anstadt: So I can still do the same work with them then as I, or with the old pair as I can with the new. They have a single source for steel. It's an American manufactured steel company in a state in the Midwest. I know where it's at, but I don't think I'm allowed to say. 00:42:01 Sumer Beatty: Oh, insider... 00:42:02 Eric Anstadt: It's proprietary. 00:42:03 Sumer Beatty: ...intel. Okay. Yeah. I was going to ask if they were manufactured in the United States. 00:42:07 Eric Anstadt: Yes. So all of their forged items like, linesman pliers and side angle cutters, they're all forged in, Elk Grove, Illinois, right outside of Chicago. And then they're all shipped to Mansfield, Texas for final fit up. So they have a giant facility in Mansfield that is dedicated to final machining and like putting handles on screwdrivers, that kind of stuff. 00:42:34 Sumer Beatty: And it's not just these pliers that you're collecting. You've got signs and... 00:42:40 Eric Anstadt: Oh yeah, I have... 00:42:40 Sumer Beatty: Paraphernalia. I'm not sure what all, what you would call like bags and... 00:42:43 Eric Anstadt: Yes. 00:42:44 Sumer Beatty: ...commemorative items. 00:42:46 Eric Anstadt: Things that you can't just go out and buy. Non-production items. Things like, for the Klein family, a lot of their weddings, they would do a wedding favor where when you'd walk in to know your table, there was a pair of linesman's pliers with your name on 'em, with a little ribbon that said table number six. I might have a pair of those or two. Bags that were done for the same reason. So just the weird, unique things that, not everybody else can get their hands on. And some of the stuff's quite valuable. So there's screwdrivers right now that are selling on eBay for like $900 if you really need a screwdriver that bad, but some guys have to have, and you know, I'm the kind of guy that has to have. 00:43:33 Sumer Beatty: Yeah, I was gonna say that's you. Have you met other people who are into collecting as you are? 00:43:39 Eric Anstadt: Absolutely. So as my collection has grown and admining their Facebook pages for 'em, I've met people from all over. I have a really good friend in Guam. And I have a really good friend in Northern Ireland, and so the different markets worldwide can get different items. So there's all the time commerce going back and forth between me and Tommy and Guam or Steven in Ireland. He's sending stuff to me. I'm sending stuff to him. I just send stuff back to the Klein factory last week, stuff that they didn't have that they wanted. So I sent a package back to the head of HR. 00:44:18 Sumer Beatty: If that doesn't spell passion for something, I really don't know what does. 00:44:23 Eric Anstadt: I'm passionate. 00:44:24 Sumer Beatty: Yeah. 00:44:25 Eric Anstadt: But it's my retirement fund, let's put it that way. 00:44:27 Sumer Beatty: Okay. And you haven't opened a museum yet? 00:44:30 Eric Anstadt: No, I, I do have a substantial amount of stuff, but I have not opened a museum. 00:44:37 Sumer Beatty: Okay. Well, retirement plans. 00:44:39 Eric Anstadt: Maybe. 00:44:39 Sumer Beatty: Ideas. Okay. I guess it's time to close things down, do some parting words of advice. What might you say to somebody who's thinking, I think I might want to have a career in electrical. 00:44:52 Eric Anstadt: If you want to have a career in electrical, number one, pay attention. Pay attention to detail. Electrical is all about the details, number one. Number two, learn and continue to learn. It doesn't matter whether you are learning from somebody or learning in a classroom, preferably you're learning in a classroom first. But you need to continue to learn. You need to continue to learn throughout your career. 'cause the technology is constantly changing. So when you feel like you know it all, you need to check yourself and you need to go back and take a look at the drawing board. Third, work ethic. Nobody wants to hire anybody that's not showing up for work, so your job's to be at work. And fourth, just enjoy yourself. If you're not passionate about what you do, you're not gonna wanna wake up on Monday morning, and if you don't wake up on Monday morning to go to work. Well, you're not gonna have a job long. If you get to that point in your career where you don't want to get outta bed to come to work. It's time to reevaluate things and look at it differently. 00:45:59 Sumer Beatty: Excellent advice. 00:46:01 Carlos Ramos: Thank you so much for joining, Eric. 00:46:02 Eric Anstadt: Thank you for having me. 00:46:03 Sumer Beatty: Thank you. Thanks for hanging out with us today. 00:46:08 Carlos Ramos: Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you'd listen to your podcasts. 00:46:13 Sumer Beatty: Check out our show notes for bookmarks to your favorite sections and links to resources that we mention in today's episode. 00:46:19 Carlos Ramos: You can also find past episodes and see what's on deck for upcoming ones at pct.edu/podcast. 00:46:26 Sumer Beatty: And of course, we are open to your thoughts, ideas, and suggestions. So send those over at podcast@pct.edu. 00:46:34 Carlos Ramos: It's been real. 00:46:36 Sumer Beatty: Catch you next time. When you need coffee, you need coffee. 00:46:41 Eric Anstadt: Well, that's... 00:46:42 Sumer Beatty: It smells sweet. 00:46:43 Carlos Ramos: I have, I have a process. 00:46:44 Sumer Beatty: It's a little sweet. 00:46:44 Eric Anstadt: It's coconut cream coffee. 00:46:48 Sumer Beatty: Oh. 00:46:48 Eric Anstadt: Yeah. 00:46:48 Carlos Ramos: All right. This is Coffee Talk with and Carlos, Sumer, and Eric. 00:46:52 Eric Anstadt: And it's...