Saturday, May 6th, 2023
Tri Star holds career fair
By William Kincaid
Photo by Paige Sutter/The Daily Standard
Tri Star Career Compact hosts its annual spring job fair on Friday. Over 60 businesses attended the fair.
CELINA - Tri Star Career Compact's success in readying students for an evolving job market was on prominent display Friday as many clearly elated seniors signed on for their first full-time jobs with area businesses.
The impressive Tri Star complex also held its annual spring job fair where students and adults learned about employment opportunities at 62 companies. With so many business representatives, youth and other community stakeholders on hand, officials took the opportunity to kick off a celebration of the career compact's 40th anniversary next school year.
At least 70% of this year's Tri Star seniors have locked in career-establishing positions with businesses ahead of graduation, said Marcia Helentjaris, Tri Star's adult education and career development coordinator.
"Those are students that are maybe working for a company and going to school as well," she said. "Some of these companies are so generous in providing training and money for them to get training. So once they get them in the door they'll provide a lot of the training. Many students will be going to college for free because of these companies."
Tri Star students who landed full-time jobs were given the star treatment typically rolled out when high-profile student-athletes commit to universities.
Student Trevor Meyer set his career as a machinist in motion by signing with Chickasaw Machine & Tool Inc., which specializes in manufacturing American and metric machine gears.
"It feels awesome. It's one less thing I have to worry about after high school," Meyer said about securing a full-time job.
Chickasaw Machine owner Ted Homan said he's been pleased with the Tri Star students he's taken on over the years, including Meyer.
"Local boy. He came to us. We're real happy with him. This program is second to none so we're getting a good one here," Homan said.
Meyer is courteous and independent, a "jack of all trades" capable of learning tasks on his own, Homan noted.
"For his age, he's well trained," he said. "He's going to move around (in the shop). He's pretty fluent with a lot of different machines so he can help us out a lot right away."
Homan said the company will provide further training for Meyer.
Photo by Paige Sutter/The Daily Standard
Adults were also welcomed at Friday's job fair.
Student Chase Litmer on Friday signed on as a welder with MS Welding of Maria Stein, a builder of agriculture-based products such as gating and penning, hay feeders and skid steer attachments.
"He's actually running one of our lead jigs now," said MS Welding owner Chris Holdheide. "He's welding gates and stuff like that now."
Litmer has been working at MS Welding for over a year now. The company was able to create a flexible work schedule around Litmer's busy life as a student-athlete, Holdheide said.
Just like Homan, Holdheide had high praise for Tri Star, saying it fits the needs of small companies such as MS Welding. Its students, including those who complete adult education courses, usually exhibit a real willingness to learn and a firm grasp of fundamental skills, he said.
"Finding guys can be just a tad tough but this program helps a lot with that, just to fill those gaps when we need that guy to come in, even part-time," he said. "It works really good for that. And eventually someone like Chris is going to be working with us for the summer … so they can transition into a full-time position."
Teenagers and adults not involved in Tri Star also flocked to the career compact on Friday to find out about job openings.
"We had a lot of kids from other schools that weren't in Tri Star but also just the general public. We really tried to push that," said Tri Star Director Tim Buschur.
Behind booths were those representing manufacturing, body shops, insurance firms, healthcare operations, welding shops, food producers, government, construction companies, nursing homes and other businesses, big and small.
"All these companies that you're seeing, they're all hiring. Some are part-time, some are seasonal. A lot of them are full-time positions," Helentjaris said. "It's a great place to be today because they're all under one roof."
Asked what specific positions are in high demand, Helentjaris said they're "across the board" but especially in manufacturing.
"You hear sometimes that manufacturing is on the decline in other places. It isn't here," she insisted. "Advanced manufacturing, robotics, of course, is huge. We're seeing a lot more of that kind of job become very important."
Photo by Paige Sutter/The Daily Standard
Employees with Celina Insurance Group speak with a woman during the annual spring job fair.
Jared Ebbing, Mercer County's community development director, called it an excellent showing of companies and jobseekers.
"Every year this is a great event here at Tri Star, and I just appreciate all the companies that attended and all the students that are here, just networking, getting to meet people and getting to meet the companies that maybe they didn't know existed," he said.
Ebbing said the area job market is red hot, pointing to the 700-plus positions listed on Hometown Opportunity, an online local job posting site.
The site is a virtual extension of the job fair where students can search employment postings and upload their resumes, he said.
"Even if they graduate from high school, Tri Star and they go off to college or they go someplace else, stay connected with us because companies can search for you," he said. "The companies don't know they exist unless they're on here."
Buschur at noon announced Tri Star will celebrate its 40th year next school year. Commissioners from Mercer and Auglaize counties presented proclamations recognizing the significance of the milestone.
"It's just awesome to come to a facility like this and see all the great things that are happening and what it means to our local industries and our local kids … in vocational education," said Auglaize County Commissioner David Bambauer.
Photo by Paige Sutter/The Daily Standard
In celebration of Tri Star's 40th anniversary, Tri Star director Tim Buschur, left, receives a proclamation from commissioners from Mercer and Auglaize counties.
Ebbing said it was an instrumental moment when voters in the two counties in August 2016 approved a 15-year, 0.95-mill bond levy to construct a consolidated Tri Star facility near Wright State University-Lake Campus.
Since Tri Star opened the $25 million, 101,170-square-foot, two-story facility on State Route 703, enrollment has skyrocketed 66%, according to Buschur. He said a little over 600 juniors and seniors will attend classes next school year.
"We were told that would probably happen," Helentjaris said about Tri Star moving into a complex that consolidates the compact's career programs under one roof with 19 classrooms and laboratories. "We were never easily identifiable because we weren't under one roof … we were spread all over a two-county area so I think that makes a difference."
