Youth Apprenticeship Program

My name is Jacob Bowers, and currently I am a 17-year-old senior at Belleville High School. In the beginning of June 2015, I started working for Cate’s Machine and Welding as part of the Youth Apprenticeship Program. Since I started working for Cate’s, I have gained knowledge in the field of machining, which is the career pathway I have chosen. When my mom first told me about the youth apprenticeship program, I was a sophomore in high school. I was very interested in this opportunity because I knew if I joined this program I would be able to train on the machines that I want to work with in the future.
The Youth Apprenticeship Program gave me the chance to get to know the feeling of working in the field before I actually committed to it for the rest of my working life. While at Cate’s Machine and Welding, I spend most of my time working on the CNC mills cutting steel plates. One of my responsibilities is to make sure that un-cut plates are checked and approved before being put in the machine. This means they cannot be bent badly or have a lot of burs on them. I run the machine and remove the plate when it is finished. On other days, I buff the edges and then we can ship the plates to customers.
After high school I hope to attend either Madison College or Waukesha County Technical College and enter their machine tool and die program. I feel that the additional schooling, along with my experience from the Youth Apprenticeship Program, will strengthen my chances of success in the machining field.
The Youth Apprenticeship Program and Cate’s Machine and Welding have given me a lot of experience and knowledge on what I want to do with my life and I believe that I will have a better chance of achieving my goals because of this career opportunity while I am in high school.