The Future Appears to be in Good Hands...

In the last two days I have had the opportunity to volunteer twice with Goodwill through their High School outreach programs. Yesterday I was at George Washington High School in Denver meeting with a class to discuss trends in hiring, job search techniques, and other similar issues. Today Pinnacol was fortunate to host a busload of students from this same school at our headquarters. Today's sessions were more involved and included mock interviews and an open forum where students could ask questions of Pinnacol employees regarding career paths, education, job search tips, etc. Kudos to all of my fellow employees who worked very hard to put on such a great event. And I'd be remiss if I didn't thank Ruthann and the great folks at Goodwill for the amazing work they do in our community throughout the year. I had the easy job of showing up and discussing what I do every day which is to interview people interested in joining our company. In fact, I went directly from a real interview into the open forum session.

I've said this before, but it's still true - the young people I meet at these sessions never cease to amaze and energize me. Most of the time I ask as many questions and learn as much as they do. My favorite question today was to simply ask these students what they wanted to be when they got out of school. Part of me expected the answers to have been somewhat tempered by our country's recent hard times, but that was not the case. The aspirations of these young adults are as lofty as they have ever been. Students wanting to go to med school and become pediatricians, gynecologists, plastic surgeons, cardiologists were in abundance. Others wanted to go to Law School or start their own companies, and I had one student who was set on becoming an actor. Another wanted to travel and see the world. Listening to them and seeing the passion alive in their eyes made me a believer again. Tough times may still remain, but the energy and enthusiasm of the students we met today will go a long way towards making tomorrow better not only for them but for all of us.