CONSTRUCTION JOB TRAINEE GRADUATION CELEBRATION

Marlene and I got home to Alaska from our sojourn to Washington DC and Indiana at 2:00AM, but I didn't miss the construction job trainee graduation noon celebration at the ball fields at O'Malley and Old Seward. The young men (pictured above) successfully completed training that will help them enter the construction trades, including forklift certification, and were awarded graduation certificates.

If we are going to "Hire Alaskan" for the gas pipeline, we're going to have to intensify vocational training - something that has been sorely lacking. The program these young folks completed is a joint effort of the Anchorage School District, construction companies, and the State of Alaska. Rick Rios, the school district Career & Vocational Education Coordinator commented to the graduates that without qualified construction people, there would be no houses, buildings, roads, bridges, pipelines, or little else - and that someone has to know how to construct things properly, if we are to live in a civilized nation.