CHICO — Some students looking to enter the workforce may find a concrete option at Chico State.
About 100 prospective students from the north valley attended Concrete Day hosted Friday by the Chico State Concrete Industry Management Program.
The program currently touts 100% job placement for its graduating students, and training doesn’t stop at manual labor — mixing and pouring concrete — according to program director Nick Steinberg.
“This is our opportunity to demonstrate what we do in this program, teach the students about the industry and let them get a little hands on experience,” Steinberg said.
At six stations, students learned basics of the concrete program — making flower pots from rapid set cement, testing strength of varying chemical mixtures and learning how business is done through networking and contracts.
Steinberg said local concrete industry firms invested in the program for 17 years by funding industry events like this, and a regional industry group is awarding scholarships of $4,000 per year to current students.
“The industry wants to take burden off the students on the financial side of it and allows them to participate in extracurricular activities we do like travel,” Steinberg said. “It’s an industry-academic partnership, and the whole purpose is to produce students to go right back into the industry.”
Program alum Ash Wear came to teach Friday and to connect with students looking at the industry — just as he had done when he was a student.
Once an indecisive community college student, Wear said he stumbled on the the program and pursing it provided him with a very clear direction when other options did not.
“I was at community college for, like, ever … but this provided very clear direction where its like, ‘You do this, you do an internship, you get a job in concrete,’” Wear said. “And I needed that kind of focus.”
High school and community college students gather and listen to concrete industry experts Friday, April 12, 2024 at Chico State in Chico, California. (Michael Weber/Enterprise-Record)
Wear said the program seems too good to be true, but it places one in a position to build relationships with people in the industry and get to know them over the course of years.
“The reason why I like to come back is I can identify with the lost student, very much so. The 18-year-old who is just now looking at their future going — (saying,) ‘What the hell am I gonna do?’”
For Wear, the program taught him how to connect with people — a skill he uses now in sales. He said the program’s name doesn’t lend itself to show the skills he’d learned, that the job is much more than manual labor.
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Students attending Friday’s event came as young as high school sophomores, up to transfer students at Butte College.
“I always tell them be visible, try and challenge yourself to get out of your shelf, and when you meet people, follow up with them,” Wear said. “They remember your name.”
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