Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Draft Day offers opportunities
Graduating seniors, companies connect at Be Pro Be Proud event
ROGERS — Jose Velazquez said he felt good about his first job interview.
“I was nervous, but I wasn’t terrified,” Velazquez said at the Be Pro Be Proud Draft Day event Tuesday at Rogers High School. “It’s my first interview, basically. I just tried to be me, tried to stay calm and be like, ‘Yeah, what do you want to know?’”
The smiling senior at Springdale’s Tyson School of Innovation, who interviewed with Baldwin & Shell Construction Co., said he was tech-savvy, studied industrial maintenance and HVAC and hoped to use those skills in the future.
Velazquez, 18, said he’s glad the Be Pro Be Proud program helps students find their footing when considering careers.
“I like how this draft day event has brought us all together and gives us opportunities, us as students, to grow and find people that will hire us,” Velazquez said. “Most people coming out of high school, they’re like, ‘Oh, what do I do, where do I go, how do I apply?’ We’re new to this. We don’t know what to do, and we feel lost.”
It was the first of three days of Be Pro Be Proud interviews at Rogers High. As part of the initiative, graduating seniors were paired with businesses that are a good fit based on the students’ skills and jobs employers want to fill, said Dawn Stewart, director of career and technical education for the Rogers School District.
More than 60 interview tables were in use. Twenty-six Northwest Arkansas companies talked to seniors from the Rogers and Springdale districts, said Alan Turner, Be Pro Be Proud national communications director.
As of 2 p.m. Tuesday, around 200 students had participated, Turner said.
The 16 jobs featured ranged from automation and robotics, to commercial truck driving and welding. There were mobile workshops and simulators for various occupations, including operating tractor-trailers, diesel trucks, backhoes and trains. There was also an expo for underclassmen.
But students are just one part of the equation. Businesses can benefit, too.
“The younger generation is the wave of the future for us,” Nabholz Construction’s Justin Clark said. “The sooner we can bring these students into the workforce, the sooner we can get them trained, and it just moves everything along that much faster.”
Clark is Nabholz’s training coordinator and outreach specialist for excavation.
“It gives us an avenue to reach students that we don’t normally have,” Clark said of the draft day program. “Outside of events like this, we have to schedule classroom times and take time out of schedules of teachers that are teaching to reach out to these kids because that’s the only place we can find them.”
He said he’d already talked to nine students.
“The students are very well-educated on what they’re looking for,” Clark said. “The teachers have done a great job preparing them for events like this so they can come here and find jobs for the future. Some of them are full of questions. Some of them are a little shy.”
The Be Pro Be Proud program started in eastern Arkansas last year, Stewart said, and the initiative was sparked by the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce. The Rogers-Lowell and Springdale chambers of commerce are among the sponsors of this week’s activities.
Tuesday served as the start of Be Pro Be Proud’s statewide draft day tour.
“Showcasing the benefits of skilled careers to the next generation of professionals is key to helping shape a stronger and more sustainable workforce in Arkansas,” Andrew Parker, executive director of Be Pro Be Proud, said in a news release. “Be Pro Be Proud is honored to help close the gap between students and future employers and ensure our state’s economic success.”
Three more draft day stops are planned, according to the release: in Fort Smith, Monday to March 16; Stuttgart, March 28-30; and Jonesboro, April 10-12.