There is opportunity all around us, opportunity to excel, opportunity to do what makes you happy. If you like to create or think or even protect others, there are open doors waiting for you to help launch your career.

COCC’s Redmond campus recently hosted the Central Oregon Skilled Trades and Apprenticeship fair. An apprenticeship is when an individual is hired onto a company for an entry-level position and are then trained to learn skilled trade. Sometimes college credit is given for completing certifications that are a part of the particular apprenticeship.

Manufacturing, wholesale retail, power line maintenance, welding, sheet metal fabrication, armed forces, heating and cooling systems, these are just a handful of the actual jobs and apprenticeships that were up for grabs at this event.

The people running the booths were there to answer any questions that inquisitors may have had, and also to provide sources to application websites.

The orientation lecture took place in a wide open classroom with one whole wall lined with snacks and refreshments.

Keynote speaker, Jamie McMillan, shared her backstory with the crowd. She expressed how getting into a welding apprenticeship turned her life in a more positive and fanatically lucrative direction.

McMillan made a point to make it very clear that the skilled trades are no longer, exclusively comprised of men, she put it like this, “men and women have equal opportunities and we can all do the same thing.”

She released the attendees to go discover the opportunities that the fair offered with these parting words, “Let’s all try to work together.”

Larry Farrington | The Broadside

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