Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties

Ironwood's career day offers students info on job pathways

By RICHARD JENKINS

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Ironwood - Representatives from almost 20 businesses gathered in Luther L. Wright's gymnasium Friday for Ironwood's career day.

The district's seventh through 12th graders were broken up into three sessions to allow the students to interact with the business representatives.

A number of industries were represented at the event, ranging from Beacon Ambulance and the Michigan Department of Corrections to Extreme Tool and Engineering and Snow Country Contracting.

Brian Haanpaa, a business services consultant with Michigan Works! who helped organize the event, was pleased with the turn-out.

"The kids learned a lot; some of them had an idea of what they wanted to learn about and would go and visit the table they were interested in," Haanpaa said. "So far, I've gotten a lot of thank-you emails ... so I think it went really well."

Haanpaa said the career fair fits with Michigan Works' mission.

"One of our goals is to help students get exposure to industries and jobs in the areas that we serve, and so this project was to help reach that goal," Haanpaa said.

He hopes to hold the fair again in the future, saying he'd like to see it happen at least once, if not twice a year.

Haanpaa also recently held a job fair in Bessemer for Bessemer and Wakefield-Marenisco students.