Blog right triangle July Executive Director Letter

July Executive Director Letter

This year at Apprenticeship Rising we celebrated our 53 graduating apprentices who’ve transformed from students to professionals, and we celebrated more than 150 young people who are about to start their apprenticeship journey supported by their supervisors. 

We also celebrated new employers like HealthONE joining the apprenticeship movement in Colorado and hiring our largest cohort yet of 48 apprentices headed into healthcare. Their investment in youth apprenticeship will change the lives of young people while developing the skilled workforce needed to keep our communities healthy.

The highlight of the evening was hearing from three of our graduating apprentices—Jack Jordan, Destynee Martinez, and Luis Avila. Check out some of what they had to say about their apprenticeships below!

“I believe that I’ve been given great opportunities. That’s probably not something considered to be the norm. And I know that my apprenticeship has changed the course of my life.” ~Destynee Martinez, ANGI

“I once thought I wanted to be an engineer, but now I want to pursue a career in Public Health because of my apprenticeship with CareerWise. I desire to help facilitate change, foster growth in communities by helping meet people’s needs.” ~Jack Jordan, Mesa County Public Health

“To me school was a place where you got to learn some social skills, but truly the subjects they were teaching I didn’t find interesting. Apprenticeship gave me that opportunity to learn about real world skills while still going to school and it really completely changed my perspective on what work can be.”  ~Luis Avila, Gallegos Corporation

Take a look at what employers have to say about their graduating apprentices in the short video here.