The Spark Needed to Compete for Manufacturing Jobs

"All across America, there are students like the ones that I’ve met here at NOVA, folks who are gaining skills, they’re learning a trade, they’re working hard and putting in the hours to move up the profession that they’ve chosen or to take a chance on a new line of work.  Among the students I was meeting here, we saw some looked like 18-, 19-year-olds, but we also saw a couple of folks who were mid-career or even had retired and now were looking to go back to work.

So these are men and women like David Korelitz.  David started at a car dealership as a apprentice.  And he’ll tell you, he was at the low end of the totem pole.  Then he entered GM -- the GM automotive program here at NOVA; started picking up new skills; led to better and more challenging work.  He began to prove himself as a technician.  And after he graduated he kept moving up.  So now, David is hoping to work hard enough to earn a management position at the dealership where he was an apprentice just a few years ago.

 

And I want to quote David, because I think it captures what happens here at a place like NOVA.  David said whatever he ends up doing, the automotive training program here was “the spark [he] needed to get [his] career started.”  The spark he needed to get his career started."