Employers ranging from SeaWorld to the military arrived Tuesday morning at the Balboa Park Club to make a pitch for their chosen careers.
Young people, ages 16 to 24, were also invited from San Diego’s Promise Zone to hear their pitches. The Promise Zone ranges from Barrio Logan to Encanto, and it’s a federally defined area of historic underinvestment.
“There are 22 Promise Zones throughout the country. They are urban, rural and tribal. And they all have to have neighborhoods and census tracts that were contiguous,” said Amber Weber, with the City of San Diego’s department of economic development. “And they all had to have, at time of designation, a poverty level of 33% or higher.”
This expo featured many trades and training programs that don’t require a college degree.
Mike LaBruno is an outreach coordinator for San Diego’s Local 619 Carpenters Union. He set up a booth on the floor of the indoor arena to promote the union’s apprenticeship programs.
He was also trying to give young people a vision of the crafts that fall within carpentry and an idea of what carpenters actually do.
“They can be bridge builders. They can build hospitals, hotels, casinos, airports. And you make that identification with them on what those crafts look like, then they can distinguish on what part of their town they’d like to build,” Bruno said.
San Diego City College was on hand to explain their vocational training and their path to higher education.
Higher education was also part of the pitch, offered by U.S. Navy Lieutenant Eunice Abuan. She told us about the Navy’s Health Professions Scholarship Program (HPSP) for young people interested in going into medicine.
“It’s a scholarship program that allows a student to go through med school completely paid for,” Abuan said. “So in return, we ask that they serve four years as a credentialed provider in the Navy. So a fully credentialed physician serving marines and sailors.”
Maya Valdez, 19, said she is trying to expand her planning horizon, although she has been interested in being a teacher for quite a long time.
“But I realized I can serve students outside of the classroom too, by being a school psychologist or helping with youth centers or any other ways that I can,” Valdez said. “But that’s what this expo is showing me that I can help in many more ways without limiting myself to being a teacher.”
The managers of the career fair said the wages available to young people getting their first job are between the employers and their recruits. LaBruno, with the carpenters union, said a journeyman carpenter in San Diego will earn between $38 and $45 an hour.
