Northwest Aerospace News December | January Issue No. 12 | Page 24

I
magine that you’re a high school
sophomore, and a guidance counselor
tells you that you that if you enroll in
a particular high school course, you
could be making about 80,000 thou-
sand dollars a year before your 25th
birthday?
Or that if you chose to go on for just
two more years of study at your local
community college, you could be mak-
ing close to 100,000 thousand dollars
a year — plus union health care and
retirement benefits — before your 10-
year high school reunion rolls around?
For more than 600 recent Washington
State high school graduates, that’s their
reality, thanks to a cooperative career
and technical education curriculum de-
veloped in partnership with the Boeing
Company.
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NORTHWEST AEROSPACE NEWS
It’s called Core Plus, and it’s making a
difference for the aerospace industry,
and in the lives of hundreds of young
high school graduates.
“You can take these classes,” said Sar-
ah Garrettson, the communications di-
rector for the Washington Roundtable.
“Explore whether or not this industry
is of interest to you, graduate on June
15 and go to work on July 1.”
For more than a decade, labor mar-
ket forecasters and human resources
experts have warned of a looming crisis
for the American economy — the re-
tirement of the baby boom generation.
Born primarily in the 1950s, boomers
are now leaving the workforce — tak-
ing with them decades of tribal knowl-
edge — in a wave some demographers
have dubbed the “Silver Tsunami.”