May 11, 2022
Four dozen Brazoria County high school seniors will walk from the graduation stage this month to a job site after accepting job offers from Brazoria County Petrochemical Council member companies.
The number of hires, spread across 18 companies, was the most in the four years of Career Signing Day, which took place Monday night at Associated Builders and Contractors in Freeport.
The offers for the students to step immediately into a trade followed the BCPC’s interview day April 21, during which each student could speak with four participating companies.
“About 70 students were interviewed and we had about 25 companies that came on board to interview with us, so we did over 280 interviews,” Brazosport ISD CTE Director Jessie Jennings said. “These students are here tonight to be recognized for their hard work and input that they’ve done these last four years. We’re so proud of each and every one of these students and we’re so grateful to the industry representatives.”
ICS Inc. hired the most students for the second year in a row, with seven agreeing to start their careers at the company.
“I’ve been involved with it since the start, and so we try to make sure we try to get as many of them as we can,” ICS General Manager Ray Lopez said. “They have to keep the position. We give them the job, but they have to work at it. This is helpful because there are not enough people. We hired seven people. It’s going to teach them about life because they’ve been sheltered. This gives them a different outlook. It will teach them a lot about life.”
Using the BCPC program and taking advantage of the growth of Career and Technical Education education in public schools benefits both the student and company, said Aaron Ennis, resource development director for Brazosport ISD who also serves as workforce development chairman for the BCPC.
“One thing I want to point out is that it couldn’t be done without the backbone of our community — contractors and all of the organizations that are willing to hire, train and educate the students,” he said. “With CTE, I believe it’s starting to hit the mainstream where our companies are starting to recognize that as a recruiting field for the future talent.”
Two of the new ICS hires were Angleton High School students Miguel Mendez and Andrew Lanzas.
“This is the greatest opportunity ever,” Lanzas said. “I’m glad I got the job offer. It’s amazing we get to start off this early with jobs this good. Also thinking about college, of course; that’s a big thing. I’m going to go bigger and make more money. That’s the goal.”
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