Riv-Ell Program Forges Ahead

(Ellwood City, PA) Reflected points of light slide across white hard hats as heads turn left and right.

Their questions answered, their curiosity satisfied, the high school seniors glance down to follow one another’s footsteps to be taken between the yellow stripes on the deck of a hometown manufacturer, a facility many students visited for the first time through the 2022-2023 Riv-Ell Entrepreneurship Program.

After a two-year pause with regard to COVID-19, the program that blends classroom learning with real-world experience has attracted its largest number of students seeking free, transferrable credits to Butler County Community College or to the Community College of Beaver County, and a resume-building workplace certificate from BC3.

The program for seniors at Riverside and Lincoln high schools was launched in 2018 through a partnership among BC3, CCBC, the Ellwood City Area Chamber of Commerce and Ellwood City area businesses.

Fifteen high school seniors since 2019 have graduated from the Riv-Ell Entrepreneurship Program, said Erin Cioffi, BC3’s assistant director of high school programming.

Mike Pisano, a supervisor at the Ellwood City Forge, discusses operations with, from left, high school seniors Jack Landis and Noah Sye on Friday, Oct. 21, 2022, during a Riv-Ell Entrepreneurship Program field trip to the manufacturer.

Ten students in 2022-2023 are taking college courses taught by BC3 and CCBC instructors at Lincoln or online, gaining insight through field trips to Ellwood City area businesses such as the Ellwood City Forge and preparing to create a program-ending business plan.

“The Riv-Ell program provides students with an opportunity to see if business is right for them,” Cioffi said, “and an opportunity to meet and explore local leaders and their businesses.”

“I think it is really helping me”

Financial contributions from 15 businesses, nonprofit organizations, BC3 administrators and other individuals fund tuition, fees and books for Riv-Ell students to earn the 16 tuition-free credits and a BC3 Workplace Certificate in Entrepreneurship, which represents a work-ready, post-secondary academic achievement.

“This program is free for all of us because of the people who have donated,” said Alyssa Donley, of Lincoln High School. “I think it is really helping me. It also offers different opportunities to explore different career paths.”

The Ellwood City Forge Group has positions that include those in accounting, finance, marketing and human resources, Danielle Book, vice president for human resources, told Riv-Ell students.

The Ellwood City Forge Group states it manufactures concentric and eccentric contoured forgings and single cross-section products from carbon, alloy, stainless, aluminum, tool steels and nickel alloys.

Final products can weigh up to 70,000 pounds.

Every position on the floor, Book said, is “technical.”

“You have to have reasoning, math and language skills,” Book said. “If you make a mistake on one of those pieces because you can’t read a measuring tape or you can’t read a 3D geometric drawing that you studied in ninth grade in geometry, or if you can’t spatially look at a part or do trigonometry to figure out an angle or a reference, one of those blocks was $50,000, $60,000 because you didn’t measure it correctly.”

Mike Pisano, a supervisor at the Ellwood City Forge, discusses operations with, from left, high school seniors Ellie Davis, Jack Landis and Noah Sye on Friday, Oct. 21, 2022, during a Riv-Ell Entrepreneurship Program field trip to the manufacturer.

“It’s good to know the process”

Riv-Ell students in 2022-2023 will take courses in introduction to entrepreneurship, the business plan, speech, marketing, financial literacy and general psychology, and field trips that include those to the Ellwood City Forge, Nalco Water and McElwain Brothers Paint and Collision Center.

The program’s field trip to the Ellwood City Forge introduced her to “different aspects of different jobs,” said Hannah Mosholder, a Lincoln student who plans to one day establish a business.

“There is a lot that can go into one job that you may not realize,” Mosholder said. “In other businesses, there is the manager and the associates. Here they have the same types of roles, but just in different ways. I found that to be very interesting.”

Topics in introduction to entrepreneurship include entrepreneurial behavior, opportunity recognition, types of business ownership, financial and market research, and product development.

Marketing introduces the students to product, price, place and promotion.

The business plan guides students through the component parts of a business plan and prepares students to pursue avenues of funding for the new venture.

“I really do find the whole process of owning a business and starting a business to be super-interesting,” said Paige Wearing, a Lincoln student. “I think it’s important for us to know these types of things. Even if you don’t want to do it right now, later in life you may want to start a business. And it’s good to know the process.”

Riv-Ell students who earned BC3’s Workplace Certificate in Entrepreneurship at 17 years of age were the youngest graduates in BC3’s Classes of 2019 and 2020.