CHILLICOTHE, Ohio – The Ohio Department of Job & Family Services has approved U.S. Paper Mill’s 6,000-hour apprenticeship program at the company’s onsite training facility. The department welcomed U.S. Paper Mill Friday as a new ApprenticeOhio sponsor, now part of the federal Registered Apprenticeship Partners Information Database System (RAPIDS).

U.S. Paper Mill currently enrolls six employees – all former employees of the closed Pixelle Specialty Solutions plant - as apprentices. The company anticipates all six will graduate in 2027 – two in the spring, two in the summer and two in the fall – as skilled electrical maintenance technicians. The multiyear program starts out with basics such as electrical safety, basic electronics and Ohm’s Law and progresses through HVAC systems and refrigeration by the fourth year. U.S. Paper mill is planning to update its standards of apprenticeship and its training labs to closely correspond with 21st Century manufacturing and technology. 

“As a third-generation employee of this historic facility, I am proud to help train the next generation of workers in Chillicothe,” said U.S. Paper Mill E/I Lead and Training Coordinator Jeff Bowers, whose father began working at the mill in 1979, and whose grandfather was hired in 1954. “We view it as our mission not only to employ members of this community, but to give them the skills to succeed.”