Fair connects employers/employees
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PABLO — The parking lot at the Joe McDonald Health and Fitness Center was packed with vehicles on Feb. 21 when Salish Kootenai College and the Lake County Job Service co-hosted the 2012 Career/Job Fair.
Inside fair attendees questioned and visited with over 76 table holders representing different businesses, government entities, colleges and universities about careers and employment, either summer or full-time.
Charlo and Ronan High Schools attended the fair as well as many SKC students and members of the public.
One of the first tables at the fair was the SKC Highway Construction Program. With the oil boom in North Dakota and construction season beginning soon, truck drivers, heavy equipment operators and flaggers are in demand.
Shannon Ahhaitty, administrative assistant and recruiter for the program, said the nine-month program is packed. Usually 21 students take the courses, but during the 2011-12 year, 28 students are enrolled.
“The truck driving program is one-on-one,” Ahhaitty said, “so the program can’t accommodate too many students.”
With state-of-the-art simulators for heavy equipment and truck driving, the highway construction program also requires classes such as first aid/CPR, introduction to heavy equipment or truck driving, construction math and field experience.
“The department head (Scott Harmon) has arranged curriculum to be as real world as possible. Students are there from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m,” Ahhaitty said, noting that students have to show up and be accountable.
She tries to recruit the girls. Many of them see the serious money out there, Ahhaitty said, but it’s not for everybody.
The program builds a good foundation for a career. Graduates can work during the season and then pursue a degree if they’d like. Program graduates may choose to pick up bus, hazardous materials and flagger certification during the summer, too.
Sharmyne Nelson, Pablo, was visiting the fair to see what degree programs were required to have a career with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Department of Fish, Wildlife, Recreation and Conservation. Nelson is interested in “ fish, buffalo and the bears,” so CSKT Dept. of FWRC seemed like a good fit. Nelson and her husband both plan to begin school at SKC in the fall.
While Nelson is just beginning, Marie Bigby will complete her four-year degree in secondary science education at SKC in the spring, the program’s first graduate.
According to Regina Sievert, project director, SKC is only the second tribal college to offer this degree program.
Bigby laughed and said her story is long. She started school in ’95 soon after she graduated from Two Eagle River School. Then she married and had two children, but now her children are in regular school.
She’s always wanted to teach at TERS, but she’s been working in the public schools.
“Teaching science is just so much fun,” Bigby explained. “I just want to teach.”
This is the fourth career/job fair that the Lake County Job Service and SKC have partnered own. Todd Erickson, Lake County Job Service employment specialist, said there was a good representation of employers as well as students.
