Monday, March 30, 2009

Fighting the Maintenance Crisis on a new front

Saturday turned out to be a very interesting. productive day in the fight against the maintenance crisis. Greta Lint accepted first place award for media promotion of the Great Heads of Statesville Exit Poll at the NC Press Club and now is entered in competiton at the national level.

In addition to members of the professional media, also in attendance were students and teacher adivisors of school newspapers who won entries in the high school press competition.

While there was able to offer the maintenance crisis as a story tip to the students and school newspaper advisors. Several jaws dropped when I cited out details of the compensation and the amount of need and the volume of pending retirees in the skilled functions. One teacher said we never hear about this issue. Drove home the message when I shared with them a quote from an nuclear power plant exec who stated that when their new nuke plant goes online, he will have to hire every licensed electrician in a four state area. Then I asked how many of their friends want to be American Idols, and how many want to be electricians.

Hopefully these students will help attract new recruits in the fight against the maintenance crisis.

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