Task force focuses on high school students

January job fair aimed at parents, children

MOSES LAKE - A Columbia Basin task force aiming to recruit employees to local businesses is focusing its efforts toward area high school students in the months ahead.

Roughly 16 members of the Operations Task Force met Friday in the library in Big Bend Community College's ATEC Building.

During a training subcommittee update Mary Shannon, director of the community college's Professional Technical Outreach Advising/Tech Prep, shared a form listing ways for high school students to make the transition from school to the work force, including 16 career clusters showing the various program pathways and areas of employment into which a student may enter.

Shannon is working with area school districts on courses in which students may earn college technical preparatory credit, and identify the higher-level mathematical, English, communication and other skills needed to support a pathway.

"Just to use it as a tool to advise students and to get the word out on what are the related jobs if a student prepares properly while they're still in school," Shannon said.

Shannon and Pete Ortega, plant trainer for Ochoa Foods, are working with Warden High School to develop an internship and scholarship for students entering the Ochoa Foods career pathway.

Ortega said a disconnect exists in the Warden community where residents are unaware of the opportunities the business offers for potential employees. It is the reason Ochoa Foods is trying to develop programs for Warden students and offer them hands-on experience, particularly those aged 18 years and older.

"Hopefully the perception is changing, but now a lot of people want to come work for us," Ortega told the gathered task force members.

Community college Dean of Professional Technical Education Programs Clyde Rasmussen is working to develop a planning guide to career and training opportunities in Grant and Adams counties to ease students through the transition from school to jobs, but needs to bring his number of committee volunteers from four to 12.

Employment Security Department Local Veterans Employment Representative Tom Leedy shared demographic information based on the last census in order to gather data on high school youth. The information will help recruiting efforts to find a disconnect, Leedy said.

"There's a lot of high school students that don't go on to college, they don't even finish high school, and what do they do?" he asked. "Where are they going, are they working? A lot of those students could be tapped into for the training classes for the food processors and the industries around here."

The group watched two videos, one an example of a recruiting tool in which employers explain what they're looking for in a potential employee, and one about the "Millennial" generation, those people born from 1980 to 2000 and how to approach them.

Worksource Business Services representative Dustan Knauss said he and other members of the marketing subcommittee recently expressed a little frustration, he said, wondering what they had accomplished after about a year of meetings.

The subcommittee is considering a January Moses Lake High School job fair, designed specifically to be for parents and their children to learn what is available. The job fair is scheduled for Jan. 17 from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Moses Lake High School Commons.

"What we want to do … is market the terrific opportunities that are available here in the community and let the kids start the preparation process with their parents and be able to step into these jobs in the event they are not considering furthering their education," Knauss said.

Numbers show two-thirds of the graduating class do not continue on, he said, noting the subcommittee has decided to develop local talent.

"Granted, it's not an immediate fix, but it's a long-term fix that could work pretty well," Knauss said.

The subcommittee is going to work on a video similar to the recruiting tool example utilizing area employers, headed by subcommittee member and Express Personnel representative Jim Sperry.

"We want to have them come on, and people working at those plants talk so these videos can be used in the schools all the time, not necessarily just at this job fair we're going to do here in January," Knauss said.