 I am a senior in high school and I've been at home advisor for about a year in change. And I know they were going to be there so I decided to go. And so GeoTech contacted career-wise and we just got connected and we started talking and I was able to get the apprenticeship there. I fell in love with that company. I still work there to this very day. I go there during breaks. I always talk to my employees when I'm at school. They're really fun people to be around. They're like a second family to me. But the apprenticeship, for me, it wasn't a way out of going to college because I still wanted to go to college. That was number one on my list to you. Go to Clemson. National champions, by the way. I still wanted to go to college. I wanted to get my degree. That was number one on my list. It just gave me a second way of getting there. Not every student is going to have a 33 or 32 on the ACT or score really well on the SAT. I wasn't one of those kids. I wasn't good at taking standardized tests. So it gave me another way of getting there because I was going to do whatever I had to do to get to Clemson. And the apprenticeship was something that I could put on my scholarship. I had the application and all my resume that not all students have. The most exciting thing about the apprenticeship happened to me this summer. I came back as an engineering intern and I was able to make these IRC gauges that we use in component inspection. I designed two of them. So that inspection for one of my coworkers named Kip, I made that inspection process go down by like 40%. So it's 40% faster than what it was. I designed it from using CAD and SOLIDWORKS that I learned in school through Trident. I designed it in NNX, made it on the mill because I'm a certified machinist. And then we tried it, it worked. And I went on and made a second one. And they're using them to this very day it's in our system. It's things like that. And there's not a lot of college students that are 20 or 21 that can be like, oh, I made this part for my job and made a process faster. I have an associate's degree as well. I have my journeyman's credentials. Not a lot of kids can say that at the age of 20. And then make $14 an hour in high school and have two years work experience once they leave high school with all these other accolades. My name is Jude Volteweber. I was an apprentice with CareerWise Colorado working at Home Advisor. Hi, my name is Valerie Deijos and I was one of the first students to have been part of CareerWise Colorado during its first long years. I'm Mark Walrelx-Malls. I'm from St. George South Carolina. It's a small town about 45 minutes away from Charleston. Since then, I've loved Home Advisor and I work for Etna Digital as a software development engineer in test. I actually just finished up my three-year apprenticeship with geotech environmental this past summer. And I am now currently studying at Colorado State University. Although I am undeclared, I do intend to look into a major that is business or anything that I can apply the past three years. I'm currently a senior industrial engineering major here at Clemson University. The only way that I was able to get that job and kick off my career was through the experience I got with Home Advisor via CareerWise Colorado. It's just such a unique program that I hopefully more people are able to join and more students are able to learn about. It just needs to be put out on the floor more often. I was in the apprenticeship program back in 2015. I started at my senior year of high school. I deferred my first year of college and I stayed at Trident Tech where I finished out the program and I achieved my associate's degree in machine tool technology. And now I'm two semesters away from graduating from Clemson University. Well, it's nice to see you again. It's nice to see you again too, Taylor. What have you been up to since we saw you last in 2018 in D.C.? A good bit to be honest with you. When I was in D.C., I was still a mechanical engineering major. And here recently in the spring, earlier this spring, I switched to industrial engineering. It was just a better fit for me. I still want to be a mechanical engineer, but I switched to industrial. And I plan on getting my graduate's degree in mechanical engineering from Clemson. Cool. So are you finishing up your bachelor's now moving into a master's or have you started your master's degree? I'm finishing up my bachelor's. I'll graduate next year, December. So December of 2021 as an industrial engineer. And the plan is to move into the graduate program in mechanical engineering that fall and spring. So spring of 2022. Cool. Is that what you expected when you were with us in 2018? Is that what you expected you'd be up to these days? No, not at all. Not at all. I was, I don't know, ever since I was in high school or maybe even middle school. I always thought, you know, I would get my undergrad in mechanical. But after my time, like my this is this past August was five years I ventured. So after my five years, I venture and then moving to one of our sister companies, K-On. And the work that I was doing, I really fell in love with the engineering industrial engineering style of work. And the way their minds think is exactly how my mind thinks. So it was just, it was actually really a smooth transition from mechanical to industrial. But I still, like I said, I still want to get my graduate degree in mechanical engineering. Cool. So you mentioned that that the transition in your major, you made that in part because of your exposure to the different sort of ways of thinking in the job sites that you've worked on. The first company that I know you mentioned was the site that hosted you during your youth apprenticeship opportunities, that right? Right. And so then the transition to the sister company, was that part of your youth apprenticeship or is that something that happened afterwards? That was something that happened afterwards. But one of the, one of the people I came in contact with during the youth apprenticeship program was actually the first one that set me up with the job at K-On. So it was, there was still a connection there. Yeah. Little, you've worked the networking then. Right. So is it fair to say then that your time as a youth apprentice, like when we saw you in 2018, you had finished that and you had started college. Now it's two years even later, two years into college and onward. Is it fair to say that your time as a youth apprenticeship through the Charleston Regional Youth Apprenticeship Program continues to influence your career and education trajectory? Most definitely. Even like back then, I think during my time of speaking, when I was in Washington, I stated how I had this instance in class where I had to correct the professor. I haven't had instances like that again, but still that knowledge that I learned from the program still impacts me in like the classroom today. I'm taking, as an industrial engineer, I'm taking two classes and they're not hard classes, but they're even easier for me just because of my experience at the youth apprenticeship program. So it's just, it's just coming, coming all back to me, the things I'm learning in that program or in those classes. So yeah, I would have to say it still impacts me today. Like it helped me with my intangible skills, skills that I have. So like as far as communicating, of public speaking. Even by Zoom. By Zoom, yeah, correct. So like even through like my intangible skills and just communicating and networking with people and being able to work in, in a team and be a team player. So it helped me in like with those intangible skills, but I would stress that don't don't overlook this opportunity to help kids from a background like mine, where not a lot of students made it out of my area and could go to like a D one school like Clemson or just a prestigious school in general like Clemson. Either apprenticeship program provided students like me with an opportunity to grow out of my conference zone and achieve goals that no one else in their family has achieved so far. And like the money like the money in the program was good getting paid. I didn't have to work at McDonald's like my other friends. So all those other accolades came along with it. Even if let's just say I don't think this will happen, but hypothetically let's say, you know, I don't want to be an engineer anymore, I still have that machining background that I can fall back on. Do you think you'll return to Charleston and work in the field there or do you have goals to go elsewhere? So the plan is, the plan is to go back. I wouldn't mind working for the company I worked for as a youth apprentice. I actually just worked at his past summer again. So I wouldn't mind going back and then we have like all these new manufacturing plants coming in and a big one involved though involved those literally 20 minutes away from my house and I want to move into the automotive industry. So I can see myself working there and I have some people I know that work there, that are engineers, but the big goal is to work at Ford in Dearborn, Michigan, and I have a mentor. My first day on the job adventure, the plant leader, the old plant leader, she put me in contact with one of her friends that she went to school with. That's an engineer at Ford and I've been talking to him these past five years and he's trying to help me get my foot in the door there. So hopefully one of these days I'll be at Ford in Michigan. That's awesome. How exciting. Well, to you if anyone, if I have faith that anyone can get there, my friend, you are that anyone. I really hope so that's the plan.