Student business fair at FHS CTE center draws big crowd on Wednesday
Approximately 1,000 area high school juniors and seniors filed through the new Fremont High School Career and Technical Education Center on Wednesday for the school district's annual business fair.
"This is the first time we've held the event in the new CTE Center and are able to showcase the new building and programming," said Mollie Brown, FHS school-to-career coordinator. "We love this opportunity for businesses to showcase jobs, sponsorships and workforce development."
Students from Fremont High as well as seven other schools had the opportunity to speak with representatives from more than 40 colleges and 35 area companies that specialize in everything from sales and marketing to information technology and food production, sometimes all at the same company.
"The way I look at it is, we're a food processor, but we literally have every kind of position one could imagine within a company, from sales to marketing to IT to engineering to folks who are processing product," said Chris McBratney, a recruitment manager for Wholestone Farms. "Top to bottom, we have it all, and I think a lot of times there's a misnomer that we just have people that are working on the production side."
McBratney said that Wholestone attends student career fairs for a number of reasons, one of which is to let Fremont's youth know that whatever career they're interested in, they can find it here at home.
"Having those discussions, providing information about potential career paths, because we've got a ton of success stories about folks who've started here in production that now hold pretty high level executive sort of roles that pay very well and I think there can be a misperception that, it's food production, so there's not a lot of career opportunities," he said. "I could argue that all day and share stories about people that have climbed the ladder, and I want to invest in the talent in Fremont and be able to potentially promote and develop and sculpt that a little bit, so we're definitely invested in what we can do there."
Brown said that students benefit from the opportunity to explore local businesses and begin to build relationships with companies they have an interest in possibly working for, while businesses are able to get a sense of the programming available through school's partnerships with Metropolitan Community College and gauge interest from potential employees.
"(Students see) the opportunities for high wage, high skill, high demand (jobs) that are available and the education/training necessary to pursue them," Brown said.
Holding the career fair in the new CTE Center — just the existence of the CTE Center after so many years of not emphasizing skilled trades — is a boon for many area companies looking to hire locally.
"It's really beneficial for not only companies, but more importantly the kids, to create some of those career paths that can get them into the trades a little more quickly," McBratney said. "Because for two decades or so it was, 'go to four-year college, four-year college, four-year college' ... there's a big talent gap when it comes to the skilled trades. And you have a lot of folks who were born during the baby boom that are getting close to retirement and then you have a lot of people that are trying to get into it, but you don't have a lot in between."
Lonnie Dooley, fleet sales consultant at Gene Steffy Auto Group, said that having courses in automotive technology, for example, is a great way to keep local kids local.
"I feel like some of our students go off to college and maybe never come back or maybe go and find a career in another state, so I think it's important also to let them know that there's opportunity right here in the city of Fremont," Dooley said. You know, there's three large dealerships here in town that are always looking for mechanics. There's a good welding shop there. I really feel like they targeted what we need in this community."
Tim Ferguson, president of Christensen Lumber, said hosting the career fair at the CTE Center "was a perfect fit" because it allowed students to envision going straight from high school to a well paying career without necessarily attending a four-year college.
"The trades are being depleted and our industry needs a shot in the arm to continue in a progressive manner," Ferguson said in an email. "Christensen Lumber offers that shot to have a high paying career right here in their hometown."
