In July of 2015, Ashley found herself out of a job with the closure of Robertshaw. She had worked there for 10 years as a Machine Operator earning $13.56 per hour. She was a high school graduate but didn’t have many skills to offer employers and few job options.
Since she was eligible for the TAARA program, Ashley decided to take advantage of the TAA Education and TRA benefits under that program. Coordinating her services and benefits with IDES and interests as shown by Illinois workNet testing, we started searching for training programs. Ashley was interested in Environmental issues and found a program offered at EICC District -Clinton Community College in Health, Safety, and Environmental Technology. This program was an AS Degree, which was almost 100% online. As Ashley was a single parent with a 6-year-old daughter this program appealed to her as she could be available to her daughter and take classes. She started classes in August.
The following summer Ashley found herself challenged needing childcare for her required speech class. She applied but found 4 C’s was out of money. Thankfully a friend helped her out instead.
Ashley was very successful during her training receiving semester gpa’s of 3.439 or above. During her final semester at school Ashley was encouraged to look for an internship/work experience position to gain experience in her field of study. With the assistance of the Business Relations Representative from BEST, interviews were lined up with area employers. Ashley was interviewed and found herself particularly interested in working at Maclean-Fogg Components Solutions, Metform Division. Her internship/work experience under the 1D program started in March of 2017, and it was for an EHS Specialist position where she worked 29 hours a week or less at a wage of $14.40 per hour. During her final semester in school Ashley received a 4 pt. GPA in addition to working at her internship and being a full time Mom. Ashley graduated from Eastern Iowa Community College District in May of 2017, with a 3.533 cumulative GPA. Ashley’s internship at Metform ended in July of 2017.
Metform was so pleased with the Ashley’s work, they were very interested in hiring her utilizing the OJT program. Ashley was hired and works as a Safety Technician earning $19.25 per hour. During her OJT Ashley learned skills becoming proficient in MQI, learned to facilitate continuous improvement projects, how to perform root-cause analysis of EHS incidents and how to lead EHS audits to ensure compliance to Federal and state regulations. While at Metform Ashley was very successful and earned all excellent evaluations regarding her attendance/punctuality, displaying initiate, attitude, quality and accuracy of work, developing necessary skills, relationships with peers and supervisors and completing tasks on time.
Ashley’s OJT ended in February of 2018. She is still working at Metform and loves her job. Ashley is a wonderful role model to her daughter who is now 9 years old and her former coworkers at Robertshaw showing them it is possible to succeed after adversity.