Program recruiting for new students

(Guadalupe County) – A local program tonight will be serving up chili with a side of opportunity – an opportunity of how individuals — especially soon-to-be graduates – can earn a paycheck while working toward their future careers.

The TX FAME Lone Star Chapter will host its FAMEous Chili Cook-off Open House today from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Texas State Technical College (TSTC) campus located in northern Guadalupe County.

Tonight’s event is designed to share more about the Advanced Manufacturing Technology program.  AMT is designed as a two-year, earn-while-you-learn degree that blends classroom instruction with paid, hands-on industry experience.

TX FAME President Jason Dinscore says tonight’s chili cookoff doubles as a recruiting kickoff for the program’s next group of students.

“This will be recruiting for our fourth cohort. So, we graduated one cohort. We will be graduating cohort two in May and then so on and so forth. We are recruiting for our fourth cohort that will be starting over the summer and into the fall with classes,” said Dinscore.

The AMT program, offered through a partnership between TX FAME and TSTC, leads to an Associate of Applied Science degree while students gain more than 1,800 hours of real-world training.

Dinscore says participants split their weeks between class time and working alongside employer sponsors. He says students earn paychecks while also building experience that can often lead directly to full-time jobs.

“The program itself is an apprenticeship model where they go to school Tuesdays and Thursdays every week and they work with an employer sponsor Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. They are learning technical skills in the classroom and directly applying them throughout the week as they go. So, a real direct connection of what they are learning in the classroom and in the plant itself,” said Dinscore.

Most importantly, Dinscore says FAME’s approach allows graduates to step into advanced manufacturing roles sooner and with less debt.

Plus, he says the opportunity isn’t limited to recent graduates. He says while high school seniors are a key focus, the doors are open much wider.

“It’s open to anybody and everybody. We kind of target high school seniors because we can get into classrooms and we can pitch the program to them as an opportunity to graduate from high school, learn a trade, start making money very early out of high school in half the time it will take to get a four-year degree with the experience and everything else while they are going through the program. But we are certainly open – we have some of the manufacturers in our chapter that use incumbent workforce so folks that are currently working at the plant and want to get up skilled – maybe make a move from operations to maintenance – they can go through this program and do that as well. There is no age limit. There is no restrictions anything like that. We are looking for good people. If you understand the importance of showing up to work on time and want to be a good employee and really further your career and jumpstart it by a couple of years, then this is the program that you should apply for,” said Dinscore.

Dinscore says he encourages families to come out and learn more. He says all questions will be answered.

“We will have all the employers there that are going to sponsor AMT’s in the program coming up for this fourth cohort so they will be there with chili, with opportunities to talk about what they do in the plant, what does it look like to work for a Caterpillar or CMC, HEB or any of the companies that are currently sponsors in the program. You get to meet the employers. You get to meet the current AMT’s that are going through the program. They are going to be there. We are going to have a Q&A session where parents and candidates can ask questions of a current AMT and also a parent of an AMT. We will have all those on the panel for the Q&A session,” said Dinscore.

The event is free. Registration and additional details are available online at the TSTC events page https://events.tstc.edu/event/tstc.events.1222883.