TRAVERSE CITY — Students from around the region are exploring possible futures at Northwestern Michigan College’s Building Tomorrow event.
NMC is hosting more than 400 students from eight schools at this year’s event, which provides hands-on activities that allow students to explore different trades.
The event, which is held the first Thursday and Friday of October every year, was off to a strong start, Construction Tech Program Coordinator Carolyn Andrews said Thursday morning.
Seventh- through ninth-grade students attending the event rotated through six stations: automotive, construction, welding, electrical, HVAC and site work.
It’s an event that many schools and students look forward to every year, Andrews said. For example, Kingsley seventh-graders come every year and once they are in eighth grade, they amp up the younger students.
“The eighth-graders get them so excited about it, that’s all they talk about,” she said.
Andrews said she hopes to build on that excitement. She is very passionate about changing the stigma around the trades and encouraging more women into the fields.
“Going into a trade is not a bad thing. It’s not a less-than thing. You still have to be, you know, smart and capable to go into a trade,” she said.
And there is a growing need since many tradespeople are nearing retirement, Technical Division Office Manager Georgina Hromada said.
“So they’re trying to teach the younger generation as much as they can because they’re the ones that are going to be taking over,” she said.
EXPLORING NEW HORIZONS
Adding to the cacophony of power tools, welders, engines and machinery were the excited voices of students inside the Aero Park Laboratories building.
This is the only opportunity for many of those students to try out these skills, since “mom and dad don’t have these tools at home,” Hromada said.
Jann Scalise, a counselor at Elk Rapids Schools, was at the event on Thursday and said some kids thrive with the hands-on learning and it’s a “very rewarding experience for them.”
The trades are “hot, hot” jobs right now, she said, making them a viable option for a lot of students.
But even if students aren’t interested in pursuing a trade, she said they can still learn something about themselves.
Elk Rapids freshman Allie Schlicker, 15, said it was important to try new things because “you might like something you’ve never tried before.”
Schlicker was able to explore woodworking, a skill she had a little experience with prior to the field trip.
Her group cut wood to make picnic tables and Schlicker said the experience helped her realize she would like to do more woodworking in the future.
Other groups were assembling the picnic tables, which will be donated to the veteran suicide prevention nonprofit 22 2 None.
Scalise said it’s also important for students to figure out what they don’t want to do. She said a girl in her group said, “Well, I’m not going to be a welder!” after working in the “claustrophobic” booth.
But many students fall somewhere in the middle — they might not walk away with a career in mind but they still have fun exploring.
Brynn Shaffer, a 14-year-old ninth-grader in Scalise’s group, said she probably wouldn’t find a career path in the trades, but she still thought it was “cool to try out” wiring up a light at the electricity station.
A COMMUNITY LIFT
The event is popular and not all schools that wanted to were able to participate this year. There was a waitlist in case some schools had to pull out from their registered day, Andrews said.
NMC sends out an email notice and schools register on a first-come-first-served basis, Hromada said.
The group size at each station was larger than usual this year to try to accommodate more schools, Andrews said.
“We talked with our committee about doing three days, but logistically it’s really difficult because this is an army of volunteers,” she said. “I’d love to do it, but it’s like, it’s a big lift, you know what I mean?”
There are 50 volunteers and staff running the event, with 11 industry supporters and additional community partners that donated supplies and materials.
Some of the builders at the picnic table station were with the Home Builders Association, Team Bob’s ran the HVAC station making noisemakers (all the copper was donated), Serra ran the automotive station that let students change tires with the airgun, and HighPoint Electric, Consolidated Electric and Windemuller all ran the electrical station.
Andrews said she was “really sad” when Team Elmer’s, a longtime partner, said they weren’t participating this year.
She was grateful MacAllister Rentals and Bay Area Demolition were able to step in a month before the event to provide five mini-excavators and a steamroller (to crush cans with).
This gave Quinn Standfest, a 14-year-old ninth-grader from Elk Rapids, the opportunity to scoop up a ball off a traffic cone with a mini-excavator and drop it in a trash barrel on the first try.
“I knew it was going to be enjoyable and fun and we were going to have a lot of good experiences,” he said.
Although he likes hands-on learning, he said he wasn’t sure about what type of career he would like after high school.
Andrews said this is typical and one of the reasons they target middle school students. It gives them a chance to think about their options before dual-enrollment or technical training are available in upper high school.
“We’re just trying to expose the students to, you know, what a successful career can look like,” Andrews said. “And it can be a trade.“