Career options abound!
Skilled trades offer solid pay, unique opportunities
Tanner Ratliff (‘23) had a summer job before his senior year that put him on a trajectory for the full-time job he has now—and a solid career path.
Ratliff, who studied building trades at the Knox County Career Center, was accepted for Kokosing Construction’s internship program his junior year. He worked that summer in the Fredericktown carpenter shop and yard and earned his forklift certification.
Kokosing Workforce Coordinator Andy Fox said interns learn what materials, tools and supplies are needed for various types of construction sites; how to clean and repair concrete forms; safety protocols and more.
“If [interns] like us and we like them,” Fox said, “we will continue to offer employment part-time during the school year and then full-time afterward.”
That’s exactly what happened for Ratliff. He is now in a four-year apprenticeship, which entails learning how to run various types of equipment and earning certifications for them, working on job sites and taking classes.
“I enjoy it,” Ratliff said. “It’s pretty good money and pretty cool getting to run big equipment for Kokosing.”
The internship program is just one of a plethora of career opportunities in skilled trades available in Knox County.
Ariel Corporation also has an internship program, and the Workforce Development Alliance, led by Julia Suggs, Vice President of the Knox County Area Development Foundation (ADF), offers healthcare expos, job fairs and a manufacturing readiness program called Knox ASPECT. Seniors who attend ASPECT learn about manufacturing, blueprint reading and soft skills, and they interact with 13 area manufacturers.
“If they complete the whole program, they have a guaranteed interview with all the companies that participated,” Suggs said.
Many students receive one or more job offers as a result.
“One of the students who went through that program went to work for one of the companies that offered him a job, and within nine months he was the second shift supervisor,” she said. “The opportunities in manufacturing are crazy.“
Complementing ADF’s work is that of Sean McCutcheon, Career Navigator for the Knox County Educational Service Center. He meets individually with every student in the four Knox County high schools to make them aware of opportunities that match their interests and to help them plan their futures, including possibilities in skilled trades.
“Students should consider jobs in the trades because it is an absolutely booming market right now,” McCutcheon said. He said trades consistently have a high number of openings, especially now because many people are retiring from these jobs. Plus, employees receive high pay and learn on the job without incurring college debt.
Fox said most people in the trades at Kokosing start at $25/hour and can become journeymen in four years, at which time they earn $45/hour plus benefits.
“Then, if you’re good at what you do, Kokosing will start looking at you,” he said. “Do you want to become a foreman and oversee a crew? If you do well at that, they’ll take you up to a superintendent. Now you’re over a whole project. If you continue to excel and want to go up the ladder, you can become a project manager. We have superintendents who are 30 years old, 12 years out of high school, no college education, making close to six-digit figures a year, with no debt.”
Suggs said such career paths are one reason students who have been thinking about college may want to consider trades.
She said that while college is right for some people, working in a trade first can help develop valuable skills—and many companies offer tuition reimbursement for employees who want to go to college later.
“If it’s related to the work you’re doing at that company, they may just pay for you to go,” she said. “We see that story happen over and over.”
Ratliff said he plans to stay with Kokosing.
“You can do just about anything and
everything here,” he said. He hopes to eventually work on highway jobs and bridges.
“Years later,” he said, “you can drive by something and say, ‘I helped build that.’”