The Door Kewaunee Business & Education Partnership (DKBEP) is pleased to announce the release of a series of e-mailable videos featuring nine high-demand manufacturing occupations that have current availabilities in the Door/Kewaunee County region. The videos present typical duties and skills required at local manufacturing and shipbuilding businesses, and support the DKBEP mission of exposing area youth to locally available businesses and career opportunities.
“The initial concept for this project came from our area technical education teachers who, through the years, noticed that students were loosing interest for jobs in the trades, particularly in manufacturing,” says Tara LeClair, DKBEP Manager. “The main goal in creating these videos is to help alleviate some of the misconceptions of manufacturing and help prepare students for future employment and higher education learning proficiencies in the northeast Wisconsin region.”
Occupations featured in the videos include pipefitting, welding, machine operation, steel and aluminum fabrication, sheet metal fabrication, assembly, mechanical engineering, CNC machining and technical drafting.
“Manufacturing careers are constantly portrayed as dirty, unskilled and the jobs of last resort,” says Ron Julian, VP of Production for Therma Tron-X. “With these videos, young people, parents, educators and others will be able to see firsthand the exciting career opportunities available at local manufacturing businesses right here in our region.”
The project was coordinated in collaboration with Webouts LLC due in part to the cutting edge technology they have developed, called Webouts. The e-webout sends a live-action e-mail message to the recipient, with a business representative explaining the occupation and guiding them to view a video about that career. Once the video concludes they are able to navigate to other occupations of interest or explore websites of participating businesses by clicking on their logos. The e-webouts used in this project will serve as a tool for area high school technical education programs and workforce recruitment efforts for years to come by actively communicating to area youth the many high demand career opportunities available within the community and help businesses secure qualified employees.
Julian adds, “As the current workforce reaches retirement, there will continue to be a shortage of qualified people and it’s extremely important that we begin to grow our workforce. Our young people are graduating from high school, tech school and college, returning from the military, and wanting to return to Door and Kewaunee Counties; they need to understand there are tremendous career opportunities available right here.”
Businesses participating in the video include (from Door County) Therma Tron-X Inc., Hatco Corporation, WireTech Fabricators, Marine Travelift, NEW Industries, Parcus Medical, Bay Shipbuilding Co., Palmer Johnson Yachts, Itasca Automation, ExacTech and Pro Products; (from Kewaunee County) Algoma Hardwoods, NEW Plastics, Precision Machine, D&S Machine, Olson Fabrication and Trega Foods.
“In Kewaunee County we are experiencing significant growth with custom manufacturing,” says Jennifer Brown, Executive Director for the Kewaunee County Economic Development Corporation. “This unique project will assist in educated our emerging workforce about career opportunities that are available in our expanding manufacturing companies. Similarly, it offers our local companies the opportunity to introduce their growing industry to a workforce that still considering future career possibilities.”
Videos will be released on an “Occupation of the Month” basis. The timetable for these releases are as follows:
- November- Machine Operator
- December- Assembly
- January- CNC Machining and Welding
- February- Mechanical Engineering
- March- Pipefitting
- April- Sheet Metal Fabrication and Steel & Aluminum Fabrication
- May- Technical Drafting
View a sneak peak of all the videos on-line.
About Door Kewaunee Business & Education Partnership:
The Door Kewaunee Business & Education Partnership was created in 1999 to facilitate students acquiring the skills and behaviors necessary to succeed in the ever-changing, global workforce. The vision of DKBEP is to prepare students for careers and lifelong learning through the partnering of education, business and community. Opportunities are created for educators to increase knowledge and “hands-on” experience with business and career learning, and for businesses to define their long and short-term labor needs and help integrate “work-based experience” into the school curriculum.
