Photo Courtesy Kenai Peninsula Economic Development District Epperheimer Inc. has helped provide hands-on training to Kenai Peninsula students interested in pursuing a career in supporting Alaskan industry.
through their friends and word of mouth. From that, we hired an addi - tional four seniors last year for a total of five seniors in 2024; we hired one senior who didn’t attend the training so we have a total of five seniors this year, and one of the seniors from last year returned from college to work with us again.” The program is helping Epper - heimer develop a pipeline of young Alaskans coming into the company’s workforce. The work is somewhat seasonal with a summer staff of 15 to 18 that typically drops to 12 and 13 in winter, but a recruiting and training program that brings five to eight new people a year is a big success for a small company. The seasonality is spreading out, too, because of warmer winters.
ment District (KPEDD) provided a conference room and shop space for the classroom portion of the training. At the completion of the intro - ductory course, students receive an AMPP certificate, an important cre - dential in a path to a good job. The immediate reward is a good summer job in industries vital to Alaska. “In the first year, four students took the training and one applied for a position. He still works for us. In the second year (this spring), we had six students take the class and four students applied and were hired,” Arbelovsky said. “In addition to the students who were able to actually attend the class between last year and this year, we had other seniors who had heard about our hiring opportunities
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find a rewarding career. “College isn’t for every young person, and we wanted to get the message out that there are a lot of opportunities to stay in Alaska and find a career in the trades,” she said. The program has now been ex - panded. “Soldotna High, Kenai and Nikiski were part of this from year one, and we just brought in Kenai Alternative High School for year two,” she said. The training, free for the students, is done over three days, including two days of hands-on learning and the third day in Epperheimer’s shop putting new skills into practice after being properly suited in protective gear. The Kenai Economic Develop -
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