<body><div><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=1xInIe_1H3qho8000" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=1xInIe_1H3qho8000" width="741" height="389" >LE MARS — Fourteen students from Le Mars Community High School are participating in a School Works program at Wells Enterprises this semester, gaining experience working at Wells’ production tracks and maintenance tracks.Doug Ford, director of training and development at Wells Enterprises, said the first-time program is off to a great start.“It’s going very well,” Ford said. “We’ve gotten a lot of really good feedback from both the students as well as their mentors and the subject matter experts that they’re working with.”Ford noted that student feedback for the program has been overwhelmingly positive.“It’s been very positive. The students that we’ve interacted with and talked to about it have been excited about the fact that they’re getting to learn these things, they’re getting to do this, and from a maintenance standpoint, I think that the students are very aware that the training that they’re getting is is high level, and they’re very appreciative of that,” Ford said.According to Ford, a typical day for students involves carrying out varying responsibilities between the production and maintenance tracks.For production, students will come to work in the mornings for a couple of hours, working at various maintenance tracks to get as much hands-on experience as possible.“We have them rotating. We’ve got a number of lines within Le Mars facility, and they rotate over the course of weeks to have experience on as many of our production lines as possible over the course of the semester,” Ford said.“We also have them attend an in-class training, which we call our skill school, which is the same training that we send our machine operators through that is just broken up into two-hour segments over the course of their semesters,” Ford added. “So, they’ll go through the full gambit of training where they’re introduced to topics like safety and quality. They learn specifics about the machinery and the lines, and a lot of things like that.”For the maintenance track, Ford said it is a completely different experience for students compared to the production track.“They actually come in and do what we call our SMT mechatronics training. They do that for three-hour segments, a couple of them every week. And when they’re not doing that, they’re spending time shadowing our maintenance technicians, so they’re learning about what that job is, what it entails, and for both tracks, it gives the students the opportunity to really learn what it’s like to work in a manufacturing environment,” Ford said.Ford hopes the Wells School Works program will open doors for students while also expanding the talent pool for Wells, as Ford emphasized the need for more workers for manufacturing jobs.“There is a need for more manufacturing people, more people to do manufacturing jobs, and we want to open the door to be able to get students aware of what that means,” Ford said. “What it means to do a manufacturing job, and getting them prepared to be able to step into that role post-graduation, so that’s that is the hope. That is one of the goals of this is to be able to get students into a career that they can. I don’t mean just a job. I mean a career. “Something that they can do and make a living at and be successful at and be able to do long term.”Ford said one of the best things to come out of the program is Wells’ growing relationship with Le Mars Community Schools.“They’ve been wonderful to work with. The students have been fantastic, and it’s been a real star on our paper when it comes to this program,” Ford said.</div></body>

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LE MARS — Fourteen students from Le Mars Community High School are participating in a School Works program at Wells Enterprises this semester, gaining experience working at Wells’ production tracks and maintenance tracks. Doug Ford, director of training and development at Wells Enterprises, said the first-time program is...

Le Mars students gain professional experience at Wells

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LE MARS — Fourteen students from Le Mars Community High School are participating in a School Works program at Wells Enterprises this semester, gaining expe

Le Mars students gain professional experience at Wells

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