Teachers tour Sequoyah Nuclear Plant to inspire students

CHATTANOOGA (WDEF) – The Hamilton county school district is launching a program called Future Ready Institutes “Externships.”

That’s a series of events and visits by teachers to local agencies and organizations promoting jobs of the future.

News 12’s Ashley Henderson accompanied the group who visited the Sequoyah Nuclear Power Plant.

Young people can’t plan their future professions if they don’t know anything about the choices.

“We do have several initiatives here at the station.”

Most have never been in a nuclear power plant where they are always looking for bright, dedicated employees ranging from engineers to maintenance personnel. And, the door is wide open to all.

Plant Manager Matt Rassmussen says “A big part of our mission is to really leverage a diverse workforce, so whether its female engineers. Whatever your background may be ..what’s important to us…part of a strong organization is having a very diverse background…having a very diverse pool of people to select from for positions…that organization with diversity comes diversity of thought…diversity of approach..it gets you a better decision.”

The teachers learned first hand what it takes to do these careers. They’ll pass along that information to their students.

East Hamilton Physics teacher Jason Wohlers says “I think a lot of them don’t think about the opportunities that are right here in the valley and of course a lot of our engineering students aren’t exactly certain about what they want to do…some of them don’t think about nuclear engineering and of course there are options..Chattanooga state has some programs they can go into As well.”

Groups of teachers are visiting potential employees all over the area.

Future Ready Institute Director Blake Freeman says “future ready institutes are a new initiative opening in the fall of 2018…and we have 20 institutes opening on 13 different high school campuses. All the institutes will have a career focus and the teachers here at Sequoyah today are learning about engineering.”

But, the job search includes people with all levels of experience and training.

You’ll be hearing more about this program.