In-house training: From wrenches to seminars

~ Two employment centers prepare students and adults for careers

Want to be a professional pilot? You can get that career off the ground by using the flight simulator at Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center. Once you're proficient on the simulator, it's off to the airport for flight lessons in a single-engine airplane.

Interested in television broadcasting? The career center has a broadcast production class that uses the same quality cameras as the broadcast professionals at KFVS12.

How about automotive repair? If you're taking an automotive technology class at the career center, your hands-on training will include use of common tools and training on an electronic diagnostic machine.

At Workforce Development in Cape Girardeau, seminars and online programs are the backbone to help adults get GEDs, receive skills assessments and get assistance in determining career development.

Both career centers have one common goal: prepare people for long-term employment in a field they like and one in which they excel.

Libby Guilliams, guidance counselor at Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center, said the center currently has 16 programs used mostly by high school juniors and seniors, and these programs are very hands-on.

"We get lots of grant money that we use to buy the latest equipment in a wide variety of employment options," she said. "We train our students on whatever they will use when they go to work. We are very hands-on."

Guilliams said if a student is in the auto tech lab, he is working on a car -- fine-tuning engines, making repairs, doing body work. A student in a welding class, after classroom instruction, puts on protective gear and fires up an oxyacetylene or gas tungsten welder. That can lead to a job as a certified welder.

"Students taking a course in culinary arts use an industrial kitchen here, just like one in a restaurant," said Guilliams. "There is also an industrial smoker outside for things like pork steaks and chicken breasts. Students even cater events. On Feb. 15, they catered a party of about 300 people."

Instruction in horticulture involves use of a greenhouse. Students put their hands in soil as they plant seeds. They also learn landscaping by doing it -- they maintain the lawn, trees and shrubs at the center, and they care for the city's rose garden.

There are refrigeration and heating units that students are taught to repair. Donated computers are disassembled then reassembled.

"Like most places, we use computers and software as teaching aids," said Guilliams, "but instructors get to hands-on training pretty quick. Every two years students build a house from scratch -- they even pour the foundation."

At Workforce Development, program director John McGowan said training seminars and classroom instruction are the mainstay.

"We teach clients how to fill out job applications, how to write resumes, how to interview for a job," he said. "We help with career exploration, skills assessments, and we can also fund some on-the-job training." McGowan said Workforce partners with various other state agencies to arrange different speakers and seminars. He said private-sector employment agencies send people to talk to clients about job opportunities.

There are online programs for clients studying for their GED, and Workforce has computer software that teaches keyboard and other computer skills.

"We offer instruction in Microsoft Windows and all the Microsoft office products," said McGowan.

Workforce partners with Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center, said McGowan. He said clients go there for classroom and hands-on medical training.