Following the training, he said, for many that have had a series of bad choices or have failed,“ You can see it in their mannerisms – after a month in the program, you can see a change in body language, appearance, grooming, and attitude; they look like they are going to make something of themselves in the world.”
Like McKenna, Brosius enjoys the mentoring with people who may have felt they had nowhere to go. When they leave the company, after working with skills-development mentors like McKenna, they do further work with vocational counselors and then job developers to help them find their future career. As they start with Orion, they are trained in all departments on the manufacturing floor.
Brosius said,“ We all have abilities that we are good at,” which Orion tries to find with its employees. Once they find an area of success for an employee, the employees work with the vocational counselor until they are nearing their training completion – which can be as little as four to six months but may also be up to a year. At that time, they work with a job developer who helps them seek employment in their area. They work on interviewing and résumé skills as they start looking for jobs.
Brosius said that they track former employees for about a year to ensure their success, even bringing them back to the company to share their success with new trainees. He said he sees people who move out on their own,“ Get a car, get a girlfriend or boyfriend, get married, start a family – many get on a path to the American Dream.”
In fact, he added that some become supervisors or leaders with competitors. With the success at Orion it’ s easy to ask why a trainee wouldn’ t want to stay with the company? Brosius said they don’ t because by nature of the program, people are meant to leave.“ Minimum wage is what the trainees are paid while in the program. The more we pay the trainees, the fewer we can have in the program. We want to make sure we aren’ t too comfortable and too cushy for them to make a career out of being here – we need to make sure they want to leave for more money and increased opportunity. They realized what they have accomplished at Orion is not the end game; the goal is to make it on their own,” Brosius added.
38 NORTHWEST AEROSPACE NEWS