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July 25, 2022
A Bearcat flag hangs above an assembly line at Kawasaki Motors Manufacturing Corporation in Maryville, where student-athletes worked this summer and helped strengthen the University's partnership with the engine plant. (Photos by Lauren Adams/Northwest Missouri State University)
A Bearcat flag is hanging over an assembly line this summer inside the Kawasaki Motors Manufacturing Corporation, but it’s more than a symbol of the engine manufacturing plant’s partnership with Northwest Missouri State University.
In May, Bearcat football players Bryce Krone and Tyson Strohbeen applied to work at Kawasaki through its staff agency, Randstad. Drawn to the company for its competitive pay and flexible work schedules, the pair started their 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekday shifts and then – with Randstad’s referral bonus as an incentive – began recruiting other student-athletes to join them.
“We’re able to come in at 10 after weights and then work ’til 5, so it just kind of drew me with how flexible it is, and they are willing to work with us,” Krone, a junior recreation and park management major from Bonner Springs, Kansas, said. “I didn’t mind it was in a factory. A lot of people said it was hard, but I was like, ‘It can’t be too hard.’ So I just went with it.”
Within a few weeks, nearly 40 of them were hired – enough to man an assembly line of their own, working on small engines measuring up to 24 horsepower. With the Bearcat flag hanging overhead, the assembly line moves at a steady pace, carrying engines that need to be locked to their frames and packaged. The student-athletes inspect them for defects and check for gas or oil leaks.
They finish, on average, about 250 engines during their seven-hour shift.
“This is a dedicated, disciplined group of individuals who are building live product for Kawasaki, while working around their athletic schedules,” Tim Melvin, the manager of human resources at Kawasaki and a Northwest alumnus, said.
Nearly 40 Bearcat student-athletes worked an assembly line at at Kawasaki, completing small engines measuring up to 24 horsepower.
The student-athletes and their supervisors agree the work is helping them build skills they can employ throughout their lives and careers.
“They are participating in real-world experiences, being held accountable to the same policies and procedures as other employees,” Melvin said. “With part-time employment a growing portion of today’s workforce, this is a program with additional opportunities, not only for athletic scholars, but potentially for other Northwest students wishing to experience real-world activities in support of their educational targets and goals.”
Grant Cooney, a junior business management major from Topeka, Kansas, and member of the Bearcat football team, added, “It’s a different aspect of something that I’ve never really seen before, and now I have a better understanding of how the manufacturing industry works.”
As they prepare for their upcoming seasons, the student-athletes – who also include men’s basketball players Spencer Schomers and Christian Stanislav – are building camaraderie as teammates that they hope translates to better performance on the playing field, too.
“It’s good working with your teammates because if somebody on the line messes up, you automatically look down to see who it is,” Krone said. “We kind of joke around with each other at that, but without every one of us, the line wouldn’t move. We work towards that.”
Additionally, Northwest and Kawasaki partner to offer the Kawasaki POWERing Bearcats Program, which provides part-time employment opportunities to Northwest students as well as an invitation to interact with leadership and participate in unique engagement events.
To participate in the program, students must work a minimum of 20 hours a week at Maryville’s Kawasaki facility. Work schedules are set in four-hour blocks to accommodate course scheduling, and Kawasaki offers 401k contributions from the first day of employment.
Kawasaki's starting wage is $18.71, which means a student working 20 hours a week could earn $374 a week and about $18,710 in gross pay during a year – or about $74,840 in gross pay during their time at Northwest, if they work all four years. Kawasaki also offers an additional $1.25 per hour for second or third shift work and a potential for increased pay based on job performance.
Interested students are encouraged to apply directly for part-time employment at http://kawasakimaryville.com/.
Student-athletes working an assembly line at Kawasaki locked engines to their frames and inspected them for defects. They finished, on average, about 250 engines during their seven-hour shift.
In addition to offering valuable work experiences to students, Kawasaki, which serves as an economic driver in the northwest Missouri region and is Nodaway County’s largest employer, continues to support the University through its funding of two scholarships and sponsorship of the Visiting Writers Series. The manufacturer established the Kawasaki Powering Dreams Scholarship in 2016 for students who succeed just below the highest level of academic achievement and have financial need, and it established the Kawasaki Kids: Powering Your Potential Scholarship in 2019 to assist dependents of Kawasaki employees.
For 25 years, Kawasaki has annually provided $5,000 to support Northwest’s Visiting Writers Series, an initiative of the Department of Language, Literature and Writing that brings nationally recognized fiction writers, poets and writers of creative nonfiction to campus for presentations and readings throughout the academic year.
Kawasaki’s support of the University through the Northwest Foundation, as well as support of Bearcat athletics programs, has totaled more than $350,000 since 2015. The company also has supported such efforts as a STEM workshop for area educators and scholarships for students studying abroad.
