... I got a tour of Central Tech, and learned that it is in fact, one of the best trade schools in the country, if not the best. Students come here from seventeen different public schools to get a hands-on experience in dozens of trade jobs. Students who are determined to enhance their high-school education with a skill that will make them instantly employable. Students like Jamison, a gifted welder who will give Rosie the Riveter a run for her money.

Central Tech exists because the industries in Oklahoma that rely on a skilled workforce – oil and gas in particular - didn’t wait for the government to put shop class back in high schools. They simply built a world class destination where the trades are amplified and staffed it with a wide variety of accomplished instructors.

Instructors like Phil, who worked on pipelines for years and decided to help train the next generation in a real-world classroom, for a long list of jobs that can pay upwards of $50 an hour. His students are awesome, eager, and very enthusiastic. They can’t wait to roll their sleeves up and get to work.

And John, who in spite of his salmon sweater, is a bad-ass truck driver with decades of experience on America’s highways. Today, he teaches kids how to drive a big-rig in less than six weeks. Kids who quickly go on to make $70,000 a year, thanks to a national shortage of roughly 50,000 truck drivers.

The success stories at Central Tech are too numerous to mention in a Facebook post, but look for a new television campaign this summer, made possible by OERB, that elevates the skilled trades, and helps me prove once again that opportunity in this country is alive and well - especially in the energy industry, where a long list of critical jobs are waiting to be filled. ...