(The Albany Business Review posted the following article by Eric Durr on its website on October 3.)
ALBANY, N.Y. — AMDG Inc., a Peachtree City, Ga.-based company that specializes in training railroad employees, will open a training center in the Capital Region.
Working with the Job Corps Center in Glenmont, the company will begin training 10 people to fill freight conductor positions that CSX Inc. needs for its Selkirk rail yard, said David Caelin, AMDG’s executive vice-president.
The firm will hire one full-time recruiter and five to six part-time contract instructors to staff a training center that could be in place by November, Caelin said.
CSX also wants to fill 15 positions in the Buffalo area.
AMDG works in partnership with CSX to fill the railroad’s need for trained employees.
The training firm has a 99 percent placement rate for students, he said. The only cases in which enrolled students haven’t landed jobs, which start at $30,000 to $35,000 a year, are when they are found to have a drug record or to have lied on the application, Caelin said.
AMDG has training centers in Cincinnati, Chicago and Kansas City. The Albany center would provide training for job placements throughout the Northeast.
Mohawk Valley Community College had previously conducted training for the railroad, but CSX and the college have ended that relationship.
AMDG offers a five-week program consisting of 200 hours and a job interview. The course includes an introduction to railroading safety and operating rules, and focuses on the use of equipment and railroad signals.
Students spend at least eight hours a day training. The cost of the class is $4,250.
AMDG expects to train as many as 125 people a year at the Albany Training Center as long-time CSX employees begin retiring. Railroad workers are an aging work force and CSX has recognized the need for new workers, Caelin said.
A growing economy is also prompting railroads to begin hiring again.
Caelin and Lance Duncan, president of AMDG, will be in the Capital Region Oct. 8-9 to prescreen students.
The railroad would like the classes to begin in November, Caelin said, although training might not start until January.
Although it works out of several locations, AMDG is a small company. The firm employs 15 people full time in its training centers and hires 50 contract instructors. AMDG also runs an online high school program.