Gregg Novack, a student at Holy Cross High School in Dumore, tries on some of the gear the Plains Township Fire Department brought to JA Inspire, a career fair sponsored by Junior Achievement of Northeastern Pennsylvania on Tuesday at the Mohegan Sun Convention Center. With 85 exhibitors offering career information and more than 2,500 high school students expected to attend, the event continues on Wednesday.
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
Students learn about careers at JA Inspire
Click here to subscribe today or Login.
Students walk through an area of the JA Inspire Career Fair devoted to health care, where they were able to learn about everything from CPR to dentistry.
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
The students who tried on heavy firefighters’ gear and chatted with Captain Jarrod Million from the Plains Township Fire Department on Tuesday morning had plenty of questions — about training, about a typical day, and about job satisfaction.
To anyone who asked that last question, Million said, he responded “It is, if you like helping people.”
Helping people could well be the motto of everyone helping to present JA Inspire, a two-day career fair organized by Junior Achievement of Northeastern Pennsylvania at the Mohegan Sun Convention Center.
The event opened Tuesday morning and continues Wednesday, with more than 2,500 high school students expected to attend in shifts. Junior Achievement president Susan Magnotta said she’s grateful to the 85 businesses, schools and other organizations who came to share career information with the students.
Many of the adults on hand made sure the students not only learned, but had fun.
At the Procter & Gamble station, for example, process engineer Alyssa Devens and Jamie Orlandini from the marketing department encouraged students to toss rolls of bathroom tissue (one of P&G’s products) through a basketball hoop.
“We let them keep trying until they get it,” said Amelie Vermoesen, a manufacturing process engineer.
At Lackawanna College of Technology’s station, students tried to catch a ball that a robotic arm batted off a pedestal.
That robot can be used at distribution centers “to relieve humans of the simple, repetitive task of carrying and loading boxes,” presenter Marc Gonzalez said, noting the robot also can be programmed to aid in manufacturing.
And at the station for M&T Bank, meanwhile, staffers asked trivia questions and rewarded students with gold “coins” made of chocolate if their answers were correct.
While several students told a reporter they already had career plans — for dentistry, physical therapy, police work and more — perhaps 15-year-old Cyrus Sutnavage from Lake-Lehman spoke for many when he said, “I’m open to anything.”