 Spotlight on Success
|
If you would like more information, please do not hesitate to contact us!
Jane Addams
Resource Corporation
4432 N. Ravenswood Ave.
Chicago, IL 60640
773.728.9769
|
|
Tim Wagenecht originally went to school for blueprint reading and machine tool manufacturing and, following his formal training, was accepted into an apprenticeship program. Wagenecht proceeded to secure a viable job running milling machines, and lived for some time with professional and economic stability. However, things took a turn for the worse when his employer moved its operations to China.
Wagenecht was forced to take several major pay cuts, until, eventually, it made little sense for him to remain with the company any longer. He left the company; but, because he had been in one field for quite some time, Wagenecht had difficulty re-entering the workforce. He was looking to move into the metalworking field, but potential employers were looking for more experience. “I had no modern marketable skills,” he says. “My education was outdated.”
Wagenecht found himself in several different low-paying jobs. Eventually he was working in a stockroom. “I was working seventy hours each week and I was making barely enough money to get by,” he says. At one point, money was so tight that Wagenecht was forced to move into a halfway house.
It was at a job fair sponsored by the Tooling & Manufacturing Association that Wagenecht met Guy Loudon, JARC’s Director of Training Services. “We clicked really well,” Wagenecht says, “and the Careers in Manufacturing Program seemed my speed, somewhere that I could excel.” He began the program in winter 2007. “I liked the attitude of everybody [at JARC],” Wagenecht elaborates. “Other schools seem to want to just get you in and out; but, at JARC, you could get a lot of one-on-one time if you needed it.”
Wagenecht also really liked the manufacturing “shop” environment of JARC’s Technical Training Center for the Metalworking Trades. He was “so impressed that the equipment was brand new.” Finally, Wagenecht found the support services that were incorporated into CMP to be invaluable. Through his work with the Client Services Coordinator, he learned how to apply for jobs effectively, how to market himself. When he graduated from CMP in the summer of 2007, Wagenecht had already been hired by a local metalworking company.
“People ask me how I get all of these interviews, even now,” Wagenecht says. But he is content in his current position, and hopes to stay with his current employer for as long as possible. “I have a more positive spin on life now,” he says. “Things are easier financially; and, I am much more confident.” Wagenecht has experienced great successes in his educational and professional endeavors. Now he is striving even higher; his current goals include buying a house, preparing for his daughter’s college education, and saving up for an international vacation.
|
|
|
|
