Center Helps Job Hunters Update Skills

While Bonnie Dougherty tended house and nurtured her family for 29 years, the workplace did something awful: It changed.

The bookkeeping skills she’d learned in college so long ago were outdated. Typewriters were gone. Even the language of the working world was new and confusing.

“I struggled doing clerical jobs, filing,” she says.

The money wasn’t good, so after she moved to Coeur d’Alene from Seattle last fall Bonnie asked Job Service to help her find a higher-paying job.

Job Service sent her to Karen Kimball and TESH’s Skills Connections Career Center in Coeur d’Alene.

TESH (which no longer stands for anything, they dropped the words the acronym represent, but kept the acronym because that’s how they’re known) is a nonprofit organization that specializes in teaching disabled people the job and living skills they need for independence.

Its track record is so good that employment counselors asked the organization six years ago to offer short-term job skills training to people without disabilities.

Community college courses take too much time for unemployed people who need to support their families. College classes also intimidate some people who haven’t been in school for a long time.

TESH decided to offer clerical and retail training tailored for each student. Students work at their own speed with workbooks individualized to fit their needs. Three trainers offer instruction as it’s needed.

Laid-off mill workers have used the nonprofit center as much as ready-to-work homemakers. Even attorneys and engineers have enrolled to improve their computer skills.

Last year’s 144 students ranged in age from 19 to 82. They stayed an average of 25 days. Ninety-two percent found jobs.

“I’d recommend it to anyone,” says John Folsom, staffing specialist for Labor Ready. His labor-ondemand business hired two center students. “It’s a real individual program.”

Karen evaluated Bonnie’s work skills and pinpointed strengths and weaknesses. Bonnie’s comportment was professional. She’d picked up basic computer skills on previous jobs.

For the office jobs she wants, Bonnie, 57, needs to understand Microsoft Office ‘97, Excel and various accounting software. Those are the programs she chose to learn.

“I’m learning better because I can stop, work on the things I’m stuck on and don’t have to keep up with anyone,” she says, and adds smiling, “I’ll find a job.”

The center moved into a brand new building last week, but will limit its daily enrollment to 15.

“We don’t want to grow,” Karen says. “We want to stay effective.”

For information on TESH’s Skills Connections Career Center, call 765-5105.

Be prepared

Post Falls’ Randi Currey decided the best way to prepare for the much-touted Y2K breakdown is to get to know her neighbors and convince them to work together.

“If Y2K manifests itself, in the worst-case scenario, it could mean the difference between life and death,” she says. “If it’s just a little burp on the horizon, what negative can come from knowing who your neighbors are and networking between them?”

Good point. Randi’s organized a meeting Tuesday at 7 p.m. for anyone interested in strengthening those community ties. Call her at 773-4340 for the location or e-mail her at rcurrey@nidlink.com.

Dream jobs

Roger Welch, the Coeur d’Alene Summer Theater’s artistic director, will help decorate sets on television’s “Ally McBeal” for six weeks this winter. He’s thinking he might also serve on one of the show’s juries. Fun.