By: Elizabeth L. T. Moore
Source: San Antonio Express-News
The promise of high-paying, high-demand jobs lured hundreds of high schoolers to Palo Alto College, where they could talk face-to-face with companies eager to hire them.
Among Toyota and other familiar corporate representatives at the Manufacturing Day event was a newcomer, JCB Manufacturing. The British maker of construction equipment broke ground on a 400-acre, $269 million plant on the South Side in June — but the number that interested the students was its need to employ more than 1,500 people over the next five years.
A lot of those new hires won’t necessarily need four-year college degrees. JCB, like many companies at last week’s event, is offering apprenticeships, where the general idea is to get paid to learn skills in high school and college and finish with both a degree and a job.
“At 20 or 21 years old, you’re graduating, making anywhere from high fifties to $65,000. And you’re just starting,” said Joseph Coppola, Palo Alto’s chair of career and technical education programs.
While a robot dog wandered around hallways on a leash and Palo Alto students gave welding demonstrations, David Carver, the JCB operations director, was using a classroom to give presentations to a series of high school groups, talking about the benefits of working for a family-owned company that’s invested in employee growth. He relocated from England to San Antonio’s Thousand Oaks neighborhood to oversee the plant’s opening.
“We want to find those 1,500 people,” Carver said in an interview.
