For immediate release

“SKILLUP: CAREERS IN CONSTRUCTION” AWARDS LAPTOP

Sharon, PA – A laptop computer has been awarded to a Sharon High School student as a result of his interest in a career in construction.  The Dell computer was awarded Wednesday to Jeffrey Strausser, a junior this fall at Sharon.

“SkillUp: Careers in Construction,” a project to promote interest in the building trades, is administered by Northwest PA Cooperation Council, a regional labor-management non-profit based in Greenville.  Careers as union-members in any one of 17 building trades is offered as an alternative to earning a living with a college degree, according to Drew Dershimer, NwPACC’s project manager of SkillUp.

College may not be for every young person, Dershimer notes.  The numbers of those who fail to get a degree or even to finish in the first four or five years beyond high school is getting higher, he added.

As an alternative, SkillUp promotes a different type of career, reports Sam Shilling, business manager of Carpenters Local No. 268 and President of Mercer County Building Trades.  Shilling’s carpenters are one of 17 building trades looking for union apprenticeship candidates due to retirements and an aging work force.

“Because of our skills local union carpenters are the best on the planet,” Shilling is fond of saying.  “In a union apprenticeship, we pay for your education, you get paid for on-the-job training and card-carrying graduates of our programs can go anywhere in the world and work,” Shilling added.

The 17 trades, several union contractors, PA Department of Labor and Industry, the Mercer-Lawrence counties’ Workforce Investment Board and Mercer County Career Center are among the partners and sponsors of the program.  SkillUp counselors exhibited at career fairs and in classrooms in Mercer, Crawford, Venango and Clarion counties.

About 1,100 students have shown interest in such a post-scholastic career to date, according to Dershimer.  Young Strausser’s name was pulled from a random drawing.  The student plans to use the laptop to improve PowerPoint presentations in speech class.

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SkillUp’s Drew Dershimer, winner Jeffrey Strausser & Sharon High School Principal Leonard Rich