Success Stories
Juan Olvera
Juan Olvera was a participant that started with Jobs for California Graduates. When EMPOWER took over, Juan was already enrolled into the General Business Occupations class offered at Central Valley Opportunity Center. It was soon determined that this was not the class that Juan was interested in attending; he was missing classes and was advised that he would be dropped from the program. Eventually, Juan did complete the class and received a certificate. Afterwards, Juan attended an EMPOWER Employability Workshop where he displayed that he had excellent verbal and communication skills. He completed the workshop and began looking for work.
After a couple of meetings with his advisor, Rebecca Garcia, it became apparent to her that Juan was not doing what he loved to do. "He was really interested in working on computers and not working with computers." Rebecca then enrolled Juan into the ROP Computer Repair and Maintenance class. Juan received his A+ Certification in less than 4 months. While enrolled in the CR & M class, Juan also had to opportunity to complete work experience hours. He completed his work experience hours at Merced Adult School as a Computer Technician.
Several months later, Juan gained full-time employment with Cingular Wireless as a Customer Service Representative, but after couple of months, Juan was not working at Cingular anymore and out looking for work again. Ms Garcia was concerned, and tried to contact Juan at home; at that time Juan's mother told Rebecca that he had applied for a job with Merced City School District.
On 10/19/05, Ms. Garcia received an e-mail from Juan to let her know that he was employed as the Computer Lab Coordinator at Hoover Middle School. Rebecca is very happy and excited for him, "Juan, like many participants in our program, had barriers that he had to overcome. I know that Juan will go far in life because he is highly intelligent and determined young man."