Media Release

May 5, 2008

4,500 Students Expected To Attend Northwest Youth Careers Expo

Students throughout the Portland metropolitan area can learn about potential careers in manufacturing, construction, healthcare, technology and the arts at the NW Youth Careers Expo.  The event is sponsored by a dozen leading employers and organizations including the Portland Development Commission, Columbia Wire & Iron, Gunderson Inc., Oregon Iron Works, NECA/IBEW Local 48, PCC Structurals, Worksystems Inc. and Northwest Pipe. The Expo is coordinated by Manufacturing 21 and the Portland Workforce Alliance. 

The Expo runs from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 8 in Hall A at the Oregon Convention Center. Students are invited to attend the Expo at no charge. More than 100 companies, educational and nonprofit organizations will participate as sponsors and exhibitors.

The Careers Expo is an industry-driven collaboration designed to provide Oregon’s future workforce with career path information and resources for acquiring skills that will broaden their career options. Now in its fourth year, the Career Expo connects with diverse teenage populations and has drawn increasingly larger crowds of high school students from throughout the metro region, including the Portland, David Douglas and Vancouver school districts.     

“Over the next 10 years, there will be 700,000 job openings in the state of Oregon,” commented Drew Park, CEO of Columbia Wire & Iron.  “The Expo is an important strategy to educate high school students about family wage jobs and the skills they need to access those opportunities.” 

At the Expo students can try welding, operate a crane, take apart valves and maneuver a robotic arm in the hands-on demonstration area of the exhibit hall, which will also include demos for other computer-controlled equipment, plasma cutting, wire stripping, door drilling, and a Portland General Electric line truck with utility bucket. FIRST Robotics will be showing off their competition robots throughout the day. Also during the Expo, the Oregon Staffing Association, in partnership with Portland Human Resources Management Association and SW Washington Human Resources Management Association, will present several programs designed to offer career readiness training. 

More than 80 college counselors and human resources and industry professionals are volunteering their time to help young people prepare for job opportunities by conducting mock interviews, offering instruction in completing an application and making a good impression, and providing career guidance.  Students may also meet with community college representatives to explore post-high school educational resources.

The diverse group of exhibitors includes Microsoft, Benchmade Knife Company, Columbia Wire & Iron Works, ESCO, Intel, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Portland General Electric, Clackamas, Mount Hood and Portland Community Colleges, Portland Fire & Rescue, and Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU).

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Members of the media are invited to attend a continental breakfast on Thursday at 8 a.m., prior to the start of the Expo. The breakfast program will include brief remarks from business and industry leaders, Mayor Tom Potter, Portland Public Schools Superintendent Carole Smith, and a representative from Governor Ted Kulongoski’s office.  This breakfast event will be held in room B114-115.

Representatives of sponsoring organizations who are available for interviews include:
Drew Park, Columbia Wire & Iron, 503-927-6438; Drew@cwi1.com and
Kevin Jeans-Gail, Portland Workforce Alliance, 503-201-1803; kgail@pps.k12.or.us.

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