Learn about Steamfitters’ work for high-tech future

Many people in our region and beyond are aware Pittsburgh is home to institutions of higher learning that are leading the way in high-tech and medical research and development and preparing students for the jobs of today and tomorrow. Our emerging technologybased economy is attracting companies such as Google, Uber and Intel while simultaneously incubating startups with boundless potential.

What many people do not know is that trade crafts deeply rooted in the industrial and manufacturing economy of Pittsburgh’s prosperous past are also evolving to meet the needs of building our future. A year ago, Steamfitters Local 449 opened our new, state-of-the-art apprentice technology center dedicated to training the workers who will build and maintain the infrastructure needed to support our emerging high-tech businesses and industries. As with nearly everything in our world today from high-pressure industrial piping to HVAC and commercial refrigeration units, the systems that steamfitters install and maintain are incorporating more and more high-tech components necessitating specialized training and new skills.

On Saturday, Aug. 26, from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m., the Steamfitters Technology Center in Harmony, 25 miles north of Pittsburgh off Route 79, is hosting an open house to showcase educational opportunities for careers in industrial and commercial heating, venting, air conditioning and refrigeration (HVAC-R). If you are interested in a career that bridges the trade craft skills of previous generations to the technological knowledge required for tomorrow’s workforce, stop by our open house.

Check out our contribution to the region’s high-tech future. KENNETH BROADBENT

Business Manager Steamfitters Local 449

Duquesne Heights Christian. It is the only way forward for our nation.

I pray that I will be able to lead as my faith requires — to help my team welcome the stranger, whoever the person may be, as we serve our mission to restore hope and transform lives. SISTER LINDA YANKOSKI CEO, Holy Family Institute

Emsworth

When discussing why the Germans stayed silent during the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust or why people did nothing to stop lynchings and other Ku Klux Klan atrocities, we mainly think we would have done something different. Now dissatisfaction, fear and anxiety in our country have culminated in the election of a president who sides with racists and Nazis and a Congress too paralyzed to protect us.

We may soon reach the same point as those silent people of the past. Luckily it is not too late to remember that we each have an individual moral obligation to protect our country’s continued dedication to democracy and liberty and speak up or take action to protect those fundamental and moral values. If any of us do lose basic rights and liberties, do we want future historians to say we were among the people who let it happen? I hope not. I think not. MARVIN FEIN

Squirrel Hill

Please. Please. Whatever mistakes were made in the 2016 election, let’s let Donald Trump’s presidency be only a one-term presidency. Mr. Trump’s misguided views are making us the laughingstock of the rest of the world.How horrible will we look if this continues? BOB KUNKLE

Ross

We welcome your opinion

States was to undo anything related to Barack Obama.

He is a petty, vindictive man who is trying to get back at Mr. Obama, at our expense, for being embarrassed at the 2011 White House correspondents’ dinner. At the very least, this is something that needs to be brought up for discussion within the mainstream media, if not acknowledged. SCOTT CHRYSTAL

Mt. Lebanon

I watched the talking heads on both Fox and CNN last week debating the removal of Confederate statues. During these debates, speakers on both networksmisrepresented Civil War battle statistics, in particular Gettysburg. Each speaker noted there were 50,000 people killed at the battle of Gettysburg. That’s a hugemisrepresentation.

There were 50,000 casualties (which includes killed, wounded, missing and captured). The actual number of fatalities was somewhere in the neighborhood of 7,000, though we will never have an exact count. Maybe these debates will prod people to learn a little more about our history ... and to get the facts straight. JAMIE SWEENEY

Penn Hills