Technical high school students already boasting full time jobs

ROCKY HILL, CT (WFSB) – While college students prepare to head back to their dorms, other teenagers have already joined the workforce.

They were products of Connecticut technical high schools.

Two of them are already making money, in addition to making the state’s roads safer.

They operate high-powered machinery with precision, and they’re barely old enough to drive.

“I walk in, and I just get straight to work,” said Juan Rivera, a tech school student. “I go on my machines, I run multiple machines at once.”

Rivera said he was a junior at Kaynor Technical High School in Waterbury, and a precision machine intern at the Connecticut Department of Transportation garage in Rocky Hill.

“I love it here. The people are great, the staff are great, there’s new machines, there’s old machines, and I get to learn every day,” Rivera said.

Rivera, who begins his senior year in the fall, studies precision machining at Kaynor Tech. He said he started working in a joint program between the DOT and Connecticut’s technical high schools last year. The goal is for students like him to turn an apprenticeship into a full-time job.

“Everyone here is actually really cool and they actually, like, just welcomed me right in and it was a slow pace, but we got right into it and I actually love it,” Rivera said.

Sam Violette isn’t much older than Rivera, but he’s already a role model.

Violette just graduated from Ellis Tech in Killingly and was offered a full-time job with the DOT. He said he would never forget when his boss gave him the news.

“I was pretty shocked, actually,” he said. “I didn’t expect it, but I knew I worked really hard through the apprenticeship, so I know I deserved it.”

Violette was an automotive technology student at Ellis Tech, and now he does mechanical work on heavy duty vehicles and equipment at the DOT garage in Colchester. State job postings indicated that starting diesel mechanics can make nearly $70,000 a year with a strong benefits package.

“Things need to be done around here, especially around the wintertime,” Rivera said. “There’s snow on the highways and we have to get people to work, and we have to get them home.”

Rivera helps make some of the parts that Violette needs to repair DOT trucks. They both said students who like hands-on work should look into technical schools. They can help students get all sorts of opportunities.

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