Tuition-Free PA Trade School Gets $45 Million Gift

A small, independent trade school in a Philadelphia suburb has received two donations totaling $45 million from local philanthropists. The male-only Williamson Free School of Mechanical Trades offers three-year degrees in Paint and Coatings Technology and other trades.

Donors said they were attracted by the school’s renowned discipline and its policy of free tuition, room, board and books for students. The post-secondary, vocational-technical school is the only free school of its kind in the nation.

In exchange for their education, students must follow the school’s rules and help with the food service and maintenance of buildings and grounds. The school has a strict no-drinking and drug policy, enforced with random testing; dress code; room inspections; and daily morning chapel. Four minutes of tardiness to class draws four hours of extra work on the weekend. The school, founded in 1888, has 250 students.

“I think they are educating a unique group of people in a unique way,” metals entrepreneur Henry Rowan told The Philadelphia Inquirer. “They take kids from limited finances and teach them a trade. They run a very highly disciplined environment, and they turn out some great people.”

Rowan and his wife, Lee, donated $25 million of the gift; the rest came from former cable TV magnate H. FitzGerald “Gerry” Lenfest and his wife, Marguerite.

In January, Rowan offered a $5 million “challenge grant” to the school—at that time, its largest gift ever. At that time, Rowan said: “Williamson is making such a valuable contribution to the economy, taking fellows that might not be able to get a job on Wall Street, but can make things and build things and do things. The school has kind of a rare approach to educating kids.”

Williamson’s programs include the Glenn E. Stevick Program in Paint and Coatings Technology, which offers a three-year associate’s degree in specialized technology.

The program covers the basic knowledge and proper application of protective coating systems, protection of various surfaces, and the prevention of corrosion and other surface deterioration.

Topics include surface preparation (hand tool preparation, power tool cleaning, and sand blasting), application of architectural coatings (coverings for attractiveness), and protective coatings (coverings to protect wood, metal, and concrete surfaces from deterioration). Students also learn to lay out and paint signs, mix colors, prepare surfaces, and apply wallcoverings.

Instructors also cover such theoretical aspects of the trade as color utilization, the manufacture of surface coatings, chemical makeup of coatings related to durability and failure, and business and management practices in the industry, including administrative requirements, office procedures, job estimating, business ethics, purchasing of materials, and principles of successful supervision. Other topics include interior and exterior painting, sign construction, scaffolding, ladder utilization, and accident prevention. Tool skills, such as the use of brushes, rollers, and sprayers, are developed through hands-on training in the shop and on actual painting and wallcovering projects on-campus and for nearby charitable organizations.

The objective of this program is to prepare students for the challenging task of protecting industrial and commercial infrastructures.

Source: JPCL