Building for the future
Kicking Horse ranks among top in nation for graduate wages
Hey savvy news reader! Thanks for choosing local.
You are now reading
1 of 3 free articles.
KICKING HORSE — They’re everywhere, and you’ve probably seen them at work. From community dinners to health fairs to school playgrounds, Kicking Horse Job Corps students can be found helping the Flathead Reservation community — and far beyond — become a better place.
Just in the past week or two, KHJC students rebuilt the Arlee High School softball field, helped grade local roads, cooked a dozen turkeys and several hams for a church’s harvest dinner and helped run an Early Childhood Services Baby Fair. And those service projects are just some of the ways students can get hands-on work experience, job training and leadership skills through Job Corps.
“Here, you’re always learning, but you’re also mentoring and tutoring and leading,” said Lorraine Orozco, a 23-year-old student from Greeley, Colo.
She came to Kicking Horse seven months ago after learning about the program through a television commercial, and says it’s one of the best decisions she’s ever made.
“It’s a lot of fun; I enjoy it here,” Orozco said. “I think (learning) is one of the most intriguing things you can do with your life.”
Orozco is enrolled in the center’s medical assistant program, where she’s learning skills like drawing blood, giving injections, taking temperatures and properly changing a bed, as well as all the medical terminology that comes with the field.
“The instructors always have some real positive information on how to be employable,” she said.
But it’s practicing leadership and implementing fresh ideas in her position as a dorm chief, where she monitors a dorm with nearly 50 girls, that Orozco says has helped her grow the most. Experiences like hers show how Kicking Horse is more than just a technical school, Center Director Charlie Camel explained.
“It is a free education (where) you not only can learn valuable skills … (but) you have all kinds of opportunities to move on from here to advanced programs,” he said. “There’s a lot of good things that can be learned here, especially social skills — If you don’t have the right attitude, you’re not gonna make it anywhere.”
Encouraging students to take charge of their environment by confronting negative behavior is a big part of Camel’s goal of keeping a “positive normative culture” at Kicking Horse. When students arrive at the center, Camel tells them, “You’re starting your reputation today. I don’t know what you did last week.”
From day one, students are expected to be respectful of instructors, classmates and of themselves. Kicking Horse has a zero tolerance policy on drugs, alcohol, sexual harassment and violence.
“You take one drink of alcohol on this center, and we’re gonna send you home,” Camel said. “(And) we’re really anti-bullying.”
His approach appears to be working — in anonymous student surveys administered by the U.S. Department of Labor, Kicking Horse is consistently rated above average for students feeling safe and secure at the center, Camel said. The positive atmosphere helps Job Corps achieve the goal of each graduate finding long-term employment at a good wage in his or her chosen field. It’s also considered successful if graduates can opt to do advanced training in their fields, attend college or join the military.
“And we’re actually at 80 percent (placement rate),” career training coordinator Shelly Fyant said, noting that she’d like to see that number climb to 90 percent.
Though jobs have only gotten scarcer over the past few years due to the economic recession, Kicking Horse students typically fare well in their chosen fields. In fact, Kicking Horse was ranked 15th out of 124 job corps centers for highest graduate average wage for its 2009 program year, Fyant said. And if you count the 99 GEDs earned by KHJC students already this year, plus 11 high school diplomas awarded to Kicking Horse students through Two Eagle River School, it’s apparent that the center is making significant contributions to the workforce.
While students like Orozco feel that the opportunity for free career training and education through Job Corps is unbeatable, “It is what you make it,” Orozco says.
Job Corps is a self-paced program, so students can take as little or as much time — up to two years with the possibility of a six-month extension — as they choose to complete their training. And for students like 24-year-old Brad Endfield, that’s a real bonus, as he can earn several certifications in a short time. A husband and father of a 3-year-old girl, Endfield makes no bones about why he’s at Kicking Horse: he wants to be able to provide for his family.
“I just wanted to get into something that I can do real quick to get me out there (in the workforce),” he explained. “Now that I have a family, I don’t see myself as wanting to look out for myself. If you say you came (to Kicking Horse) for yourself, it makes it that much easier to quit.”
After completing the carpentry program this month, Endfield plans to go through the facilities maintenance program as well, and then possibly attend Salish Kootenai College for its highway construction training program. That way, when he and his family move back to his home state of Arizona, he’ll be a good hire in a state where there’s a lot of expansion and development going on, he explained.
Endfield’s on the older end of the spectrum at Kicking Horse, where students can enroll from ages 16 through 24, and he says he has more concrete definition than most students for what he wants to accomplish during his time at Job Corps. But one thing’s for sure, he said; “When you come here, it has to be your choice; it can’t be your mom or someone making you come.”
Orozco advised that anyone considering Job Corps should keep an open mind and be ready to learn.
“A new day comes with new things,” she said.
