Photos by Ralph Freso / Slideshow
Mickey Nuñez has seen the Night of Celebration unfold nearly a half dozen times as a program manager in Grand Canyon University's Center for Workforce Development.
Mostly young men and women who chose not to – or couldn’t afford to – take a traditional route through a university proudly walk up to shake his hand and grab their certificate of completion of a program that puts them on the way toward careers as electricians or machinists.
He gets choked up every time.
“I just get emotional,” he said afterward. “I know this will change their lives.”
The program started with the Pre-Apprenticeship for Electricians in 2022 to meet a dire need in Arizona and added a Computer Numerical Control (CNC) Machinists Pathway the following year. Since that start, it has more than tripled its number of participants who have completed a semester of courses that include math, English and hands-on work in the electrical or CNC fields.
“For me, it shows GCU stays true to its mission statement: to build community leaders and serve others in innovative and strategic ways to help human flourishing,” Nuñez said as he opened the program in Global Credit Union Arena Tuesday night.
Among the 150 hands that Nuñez shook was Trace Scifres, who completed the CNC Pathway.
When he got up to speak, a group of more than a dozen young men from his church in Tempe stood to give him a standing ovation.
The Windsor, Colorado, native tried a semester in a private college near home, but he was a bit lost, he told the crowd of participants’ family and friends.
“I never expected to be here. Colorado was my comfort zone with family and friends nearby. But when the job market grew stagnant, and opportunities seem limited, I needed a change. Coming to Arizona was a leap of faith,” he said of trying a series of jobs before hearing of the pathway from an uncle who works at GCU.
He didn’t know what CNC was at first, but when he saw the creativity and problem solving it involved, he was hooked. He adjusted from flexible, show-up-midmorning jobs to a 5 a.m. start. He studied and worked.
“For the first time in years, I was excited about school,” he said. “To say this pathway was a blessing is an understatement.”
Scifres said afterward that the blessing includes a job interview today with hopes of becoming a CNC inspector. It did change the course of his life.
Many others were in the same boat on Tuesday, either already securing employment as apprentices for electrical contractors or jobs as machinists, or carting their resumes around to the tables of dozens of industry sponsors who have partnered with GCU to offer this free pathway for participants.
“Be proud that you have survived this four-month program – with grit, with patience. You went from bending conduit and working on a hot CNC machine to writing an English paper and turning in math homework,” said GCU Provost Dr. Randy Gibb. “Anyone could have quit, but you guys stuck it out. I’m really proud of you sitting in those chairs tonight.
“You are building the future of Arizona.”
Under Interim Director Shelly Seitz and the umbrella of the College of Engineering and Technology and Dean Paul Lambertson, the pathway grew to an Austin, Texas, location this fall and is expected to expand in the coming year in the growing chip manufacturing and construction fields.
“I always look at GCU – they come to serve, which is so awesome,” JP Jaramillo, the evening’s keynote speaker, said afterward as participants piled up resumes at his table. “It’s giving back and really caring about the students and their opportunities. It just keeps getting better.”
Jaramillo grew up in Maryvale, the grandson of immigrants from Mexico, who didn’t have a lot of opportunities out of high school but started out “pulling cable” for a telecommunications company. He has risen to vice president of talent acquisition for the Nox Group, the parent company of Corbins, electrical contractors in Phoenix and a key sponsor of the Center for Workforce Development.
He sees a lot of himself in the young people who came up to him with ties on and resumes in hand, one saying, “I love your company. You guys are like the top company I want to go to.”
But he shared some bad news in his speech.
Fifty percent of all entry-level electrical workers don’t make it through 90 days on the job, he said. “Construction is hard. You’re up early, working 10-12 hour days.
“The good news is you don’t have to be a statistic. Statistically, you are looking at a guy here who didn’t have one but two dads walk out before I was 6 years old,” he told the crowd. “I’ve been bankrupt, I’ve been broke, I’ve been on welfare. But I made a choice to not be a statistic. I picked up my sword, I put on my shield, I put on my helmet, and I fought those dragons.
“And I chose to be a winner because winners define themselves by what they made happen. Losers define themselves by what happened to them. So I want you guys to ask yourself a question. What will define you? Is it going to be what you make happen or is it going to be what happens to you?
“Go fight your dragons and defy the odds. I hope to God I get to watch it.”
Grand Canyon University senior writer Mike Kilen can be reached at [email protected]
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