Celebrating Manufacturing Month: Ben Wallace’s journey to success with ACTC’s Applied Process Technologies program

Published on Oct 8, 2024

Ben Wallace chose Ashland Community & Technical College after hearing about a friend’s positive experience in the Applied Process Technologies program. 

Wallace will graduate from the same program next spring. 

He says his biggest goal for after graduation is to earn an operator position at Marathon Petroleum. 

He is off to a good start, as he recently completed an internship at Marathon. 

“I was able to shadow operators seeing exactly what my job would be like, and I got to do the job of an operator under supervision which included learning and drawing a piping and instrumentation diagram of my unit, making rounds making sure the unit and process is running correctly and safely, and preforming minor maintenance tasks,” Wallace said.

He said he would recommend the APT program to anyone.

“The APT program can lead to a great job, and the program’s professors are great,” Wallace said. 

The Applied Process Technologies Associate in Applied Science degree program at ACTC prepares students for entry-level positions in one of three options: chemical/refinery operations, general industry, and the power industry.

ACTC is celebrating its APT program as well as its other manufacturing programs all month long as a part of Manufacturing Month. 

According to the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development website, Kentucky plays a huge role in the nation’s manufacturing industry through the nearly five thousand businesses statewide and quarter of a million Kentuckians employed in manufacturing. 

The National Association of Manufacturers ranks Kentucky as a leading manufacturing state with over thirteen percent of its workforce within the sector, versus 8.5% nationally. 

ACTC is proud to train the future workforce of the manufacturing industry. For more information on programs offered at ACTC, visit https://ashland.kctcs.edu/education-training/program-finder/index.aspx