Career and Leadership Development Academy Manufacturing and Clean Energy Day Blog (Class of 2023)

Throughout the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce’s Career and Leadership Development Academy eight month program, each of the eight middle schools are assigned a day to write about their experiences. 41 students from across all eight New Hanover County middle schools participated in the sixth industry exploration day, Manufacturing and Energy, on February 1. Students had the opportunity to hear from Corning’s Human Resources Manager as well as leaders from GE Hitachi, Cape Fear Solar Systems, and Duke Energy. They took a field trip to GE Aerospace to meet with real employees at the plant. Below is the sixth blog write up of the first ever Wilmington Chamber of Commerce’s Career and Leadership Academy experience written by Emma B Trask Middle School participants.

Did you know that any time you fly on a plane you’re on one that has some parts made right here in Castle Hayne which is just on the northern end of Wilmington?  Amazing huh?

Today we got to go to General Electric (G.E.) G.E. used to make appliances and light bulbs, but now another company bought that part of their company.  They now have two things they do which are nuclear energy and aerospace parts designing and making.  We mostly learned about the aerospace part of their business.

They make turbines, fans, and compressors for airplanes for commercial airplanes and also for the military.  One of the most amazing things we learned is that they have to be very detailed and test their parts in every kind of environment like ice, hail, birds hitting the engine, and hurricane winds.  They have places where they make the storms and put frozen birds and even ice in a chamber and the part is tested.  The engineer who spoke to us said they spend millions of dollars (up to $10 million) actually ruining their parts and engines to test them to make sure they are safe.  The reason why is because they told us they, “...have lives in their hands.”  Whenever anyone flies on an airplane the parts can’t have any type of mistakes or flaws or 

the engine could break down which they call a ‘fail’.  They test the turbines to make sure it doesn’t break the casing around the engine.

The engineers are the ones who design the parts using computer programs, the robotics team helps design and test the parts, they have computer programmers and mechanics who build the parts.  When they are built, they have to be as accurate or correct as one-quarter of the thickness of a human hair.  

There are machinists who work there who said Cape Fear Community College has a mechanics program of study that is the right path for anyone who wants to be a mechanic and machinists there.  They have welders too.  We learned that every operator and mechanic inspects their parts before and after they put it in a machine or work on it. There is a permanent record for every part in case of failure.  The documents are for what they call the life of the machine and tracking it is called traceability so if something ever went wrong on a flight, they can trace the problem to a particular person and machine part.  One of the coolest machines they have is a sonic wave tank.  It uses ultrasound to look for imperfections on the metal.  

While we got a tour of the plant we had to walk between two blue lines like a walking traffic lane.  The place where the mechanics are is very loud and smells like oil.  Our tour guide Darryl was very serious about safety, following the walking paths and not touching anything.  We even had to hold both handrails going up and down the stairs for safety.   We couldn’t take any pictures (the pictures in this blog are ones we found on Google images and have links).

On today’s trip we heard from Susan Barbee, Human Resources Manager for Corning Company.  The Corning Company used to make dishes that our counselor remembers from when she was younger.  They don’t make these dishes any more.  The company now makes optical fiber glass.  Ms. Barbee taught us that being in Human Resources is like being a school social worker or school counselor.  People in her company come to her for help, advice, and resources.  She said that she has a lot of skills that go from one job to the next and she moved up in her career adding new things she can do.

Corning is 172 years old and opened the world's first optical fiber manufacturing facility in Wilmington in 1979. Today, it is the world's largest optical fiber manufacturing plant, though the company has other optical fiber plants in Concord, N.C. and Shanghai, China, which allows Corning to service the fiber market all over the world.  Ms. Barbee had a lot of energy and a good speaking voice that helped us listen to her.  She said the glass Corning makes was in Thomas Edison's light bulb, in Tesla car company’s curved windows, the James Webb space telescope (glass for the scope part), bendable glass that’s a new feature of bendable phones.  Corning also made the glass used to hold medicine for the Covid 19 vaccines and the NFL data computer center. 

We learned that the glass that bends and twists is about the thickness of a human hair.  Corning has a new part of their business called Nuclear Fusion which is making 2 atoms one.  Corning's laser technology makes this possible for scientists.  

To work in Human Resources you have to have a lot of skills including:

-Write well 

-Speak and communicate well

-Solve problems

-Use critical thinking

-Help people grow their career

-Be a partner with other businesses

-Give good feedback

-Make it a fun place to work

Next we heard from a GE Hitachi Group of engineers.  They were all women and said most engineers are men.  They called this a male-dominated field.  They are in a women’s group and do public speaking, volunteer work, and outreach in the community to represent women engineers.  They said right now they are hiring tons of engineers and we should think about becoming an engineer.  They advised us to apply a certain skill set to a product your company makes.  

A district manager for Duke Energy spoke to us.  He has 6 counties and has to work with mayors, foundation charities, community commissioners, and regular customers.  He said he has to have good communication and speaking skills.  He has a master’s degree in organizational leadership from college.  He moved up in the Duke energy company from 

customer service, billing, consumer complaints, district manager, and spokesperson.  He talked a lot about having transferable skills that you can use in a lot of different jobs just like Ms. Barbee from Corning told us.  Duke has line workers who work outside in all kinds of weather fixing the power lines.  You have to go to 2 years of school to become a line worker.  It is very dangerous.  Duke  also has drones that can fly to areas that are hard to walk into to look at power lines.  Using drones controls the costs to not send workers out into the field.  He advised us to look into taking classes in flying drones in high school.  

Robert Parker, Chief Officer for Cape Fear Solar Systems was the final presenter from a business today.  He taught us that using solar panels is a good way to save money and save electricity.  Jobs in the field are sales, installing solar panels on people’s homes, on business buildings, and on schools like Murray Middle which were installed by Cape Fear Solar.  Click here for more information on Murray’s solar panels  Our Trask Counselor has solar panels on her house and she says they have saved money on her bills.  Other jobs working in a solar company might be satellite imagery technician, designing engineers, and software design.  

One of our students said his Dad is a marine biologist.  When he had lab space in a NOAA lab there was a room-sized tank with lights above (pictured to the right) that made the day/night cycle.  This is something our guest speaker talked about: engineers and software designers work on creating day/night cycles in solar and electric panels to save money and help animals like fish who are being used for research like in the NOAA lab.  Here’s an article on more of that type of science.  The tank he used was at the James Howard laboratory on Sandy Hook, NJ across from NYC.  The pic here is of the lights that can be programmed for the day/night cycle.  If they could run off solar like Cape Fear Solar installs, they could save money and continue good research.  

Our Power Skill presenters today were Chris Lewandowski, Associate Director for Career Development, UNCW and Crystal Barkley, Account Manager | Education, Tallo Company.  They both spoke about creating a portfolio and becoming very involved in clubs, groups, and leadership teams at our schools now, in high school, and in college.  They said getting lots of experience in things like sports, therter, jobs, and volunteering is like putting together a puzzle of experiences and a puzzle of skills that you can put on a resume when you’re looking for acceptance in a school or program and applying for a job.  They said we should use a journal or notebook to write down our experiences in things like camps, summer theater, sports, coaching, tutoring, church groups, scouts and 4-H, etc.  We also can us CFNC and the Tallo company to put in writing all the things we’re doing to get ready for what’s next.

The 8 career competencies we learned are:

-Career & Self-Development.

-Communication.

-Critical Thinking.

-Equity & Inclusion.

-Leadership.

-Professionalism.

-Teamwork.

-Technology.

Here are some links from UNCW’s Career Center:

Career Planning Guide - Multiple resume, cover letter, and job search engines and tools

Big Interview - As you continue to apply for jobs and internships, practice and master your interview. Career Counselors will be available to critique and conduct mock interviews using Zoom.

PathwayU - Unsure of where your interests, skills, and talents can take you? PathwayU will help you with a comprehensive assessment to provide you with many careers in various industries according to major, values, and interest.