VECAT Teams With Branscome - Promotes Apprenticeship to High Schools Students

As most companies are facing the imminent retirement of long-term employees and the need for a solid bench as back up, employers are looking for creative ways to find the people they need to fill that bench.  Enter the VECAT program and its latest partnership with Branscome, Inc's Richmond Office.  On Friday, March 2 and Monday, March 5, Carter Iseman and Mike Dudley of VAA, and Rob Anderson of Branscome, Inc. met with students from Highland Springs and Hermitage high schools’ Advanced Career Education Center (ACE) to discuss the asphalt industry and its career opportunities.  Twenty-eight students representing Highland Springs’ Masonry and Electrical programs and 13 students from Hermitage's Electrical, HVAC and Landscaping programs attended the sessions. The purpose of these two visits was to introduce students to the asphalt industry and the dozens of career opportunities that exist within it.  Simultaneously, Branscome is looking to identify candidates from this pool of future laborers to employ as apprentices via VECAT’s Apprenticeship and Associate Degree programs. 

During the hour-long visit with each group of students, NAPA videos were shown detailing the rideability of asphalt, as well as a plant fly-over video from the VECAT Plant I school, a blast video provided by Chemung Contracting and a presentation created by Germanna Community College detailing the VECAT Apprentice Program. Mike covered the various working environments that one might find themselves in, including the Field, Plant, Lab or even Corporate work, while Rob explained the work in both the industry and at Branscome as being very similar to any other type of business that offers all sorts of job roles, including: project managers, supervisors, skilled laborers, accountants, HR employees, engineers, legal counsel, sales people, QC staff, truck drivers, equipment operators and a whole host of other roles that might be of interest. Finally, Carter finished the information session with an overview of the apprenticeship program and the benefits of having a full-time, paid job while being given access to a full education that results in an Associate degree and the potential to keep pursuing higher education at a four-year college or university. Most of the students found the idea of earning money to use for things such as a car purchase or rent payment, and an industry offering them a solid life-long career to be very appealing.

At the conclusion of the Highland Springs session, 6 students remained behind to find out about the timing of interviews that Branscome will be scheduling in the next few weeks. One masonry program student declared that the session had changed his whole outlook for his future and that he intended to be there for interviews with the hopes of being selected for the program. The Hermitage students remained with their instructor at the conclusion of their session; however, a show of hands revealed that half of this group were interested in attending interviews. Next steps will include helping the students to prepare resumes and talking points about themselves and scheduling mock interviews to provide practice for them before they meet with Branscome for the formal interview process.

If you or your company is interested in the Apprenticeship program and scheduling interviews with a potential student or other candidates, please contact Carter Iseman at ciseman@vaasphalt.com or at (804) 288-3169.