Nebraska Companies Join Effort To Connect Youths To Careers

Three Nebraska companies are joining a state program intended to expose the state's youths to manufacturing and technology careers.

Associated Press

Jun 27, 2017

A worker loads spools of thread at the Repreve Bottle Processing Center, part of the Unifi textile company in Yadkinville, N.C., Friday, Oct. 21, 2016. America has lost more than 7 million factory jobs since manufacturing employment peaked in 1979. Yet American factory production, minus raw materials and some other costs, more than doubled over the same span to $1.91 trillion last year, according to the Commerce Department, which uses 2009 dollars to adjust for inflation. That’s a notch below the record set on the eve of the Great Recession in 2007. And it makes U.S. manufacturers No. 2 in the world behind China.. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

LINCOLN, NE — Three Nebraska companies are joining a state program intended to expose the state's youths to manufacturing and technology careers.

Aulick Industries in Scottsbluff, Becton Dickinson in Broken Bow and Cyclonaire of York were all chosen as recipients of the 2017 Nebraska Developing Youth Talent Initiative Grant Awards. Gov. Pete Ricketts announced the winners Monday in a press conference.

Ricketts proposed the program in 2015 to help forge partnerships between private industries and public schools. The program gives seventh and eighth graders a hands-on learning experience in industries that are important to the state's economic development.

Ricketts says many of the jobs offer good salaries for people who want to start work straight out of high school rather than attending a four-year university.