Domtar Corporation
10/04/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 10/04/2024 08:17
Hawesville Mill Promotes Manufacturing Careers with Mentor Program
On October 4, we're proud to celebrate Manufacturing Day 2024. Also known as MFG Day, the annual event helps showcase the reality and the future of modern manufacturing careers. Sponsored by The Manufacturing Institute, MFG Day encourages manufacturers to open their doors to students, parents, educators and community leaders to build excitement about manufacturing careers.
This week, our Hawesville Millis doing just that. For the second year, Hawesville Mill is welcoming a group of local high school students to participate in its High School Mentor Program. Open to juniors and seniors at Hawesville High School, the program offers students the opportunity to shadow mill employees twice each week for the entire school year.
Jason Curry, human resources manager at Hawesville Mill, says, "Here in Hancock County, Kentucky, we have a tremendous amount of manufacturing. When our local students graduate from high school, they can get a little experience, and within a year or two they can be working at one of these big manufacturing sites making really good money."
The Hawesville Mill mentoring program was born out of the idea that shining a light on local manufacturing careers would attract students to stay in or return to Hawesville to build a career at the mill.
Mentoring Program Highlights Manufacturing Careers
"The recruiting world has changed over the years, and we're trying to get students more interested in various manufacturing careers early on instead of waiting until they're out of school to recruit them," Curry says. "We worked with the local high school and the Kentucky Career Center to come up with this mentoring program where students can shadow someone in engineering, maintenance, production, whatever it may be, as part of their regular school schedule."
All Kentucky high school students have the opportunity to choose a career pathway that gives them a chance to tailor their curriculum for success in their chosen field. Hawesville High School students who select the manufacturing or engineering pathway can apply to the mentoring program. If accepted, they spend two mornings a week at the mill as an intern of sorts, where they earn a small wage and learn more about their chosen career pathway.
Last year, six students participated in the program. This year, there are five. Participants have to apply, interview and be accepted into the program, which in itself is a great learning experience.
Jack LaClair is a mechanical engineer at the mill and a program mentor. Last year, he showed students what a mechanical engineering career looks like at Domtar. They shadowed LaClair as he went about his day.
"I could show them new equipment, explain whatever I was working on, let them participate in meetings and let them help with some of the work involved in planning jobs," he explains. "One of those students is returning this year to shadow an electrical engineer to see what that's like."
LaClair says mentoring students is rewarding. Having attended high school in Hawesville and returned after college to begin work at Hawesville Mill a year and a half ago, he understands the positive impact hands-on experience can have on students.
"It's teaching the next group of people how it is around here. If I had had that opportunity in high school, I definitely would have taken it," he says. "It's a great way to know what industrial processes look like and to have a baseline for knowing which manufacturing career path to choose."
Manufacturing Careers Are for Everyone
Curry is quick to point out that manufacturing careers and this unique mentoring program are for everyone, not just college-bound students and engineering graduates. "Our program exposes these students to various manufacturing career paths and opportunities. Some students may be on a college track, but some aren't. One student said to me, 'I don't want to be an engineer. I want to work in production.' We want to give those students opportunities too."
The ultimate goal is to identify talented, hardworking people who want to live in the community and build meaningful manufacturing careers at Hawesville Mill.
"We want them to remember their experiences here and be excited to come work for us after high school, as summer interns or after college," Curry says.