Job Corps helps recycling center

PALMER — Jacob Conrad stood in the driveway of Valley Community for Recycling Solutions Thursday wearing a vest, stop sign in hand.

“I’m still new,” he said when asked if he ever got to drive the equipment that’s smoothing out the upper parking lot and widening the recyclables drop off area outside the gates. “I’m not trained property yet.”

Though he hails from Wasilla, Conrad is part of Alaska Job Corps Center in Palmer, hoping to learn to drive heavy equipment. He said he’s enjoyed working on the VCRS project.

“So far it’s pretty good,” he said, noting that he’d also been helping figure out the grades for the various pieces of the projects.

To hear VCRS director Mollie Boyer describe it, the partnership has been more than just good.

“They work so hard and they really are committed to doing a good job,” she said.

Thursday, she led a tour of the facility for Job Corps officials, including spokeswoman Barbara Hunt and new director Malyn Smith. As she did, she pointed out other areas where VCRS could partner with Job Corps. Maybe students in the building maintenance program could learn how to monitor building systems on the VCRS facility, or learn about renewable energy on the multiple generation systems the recycling center has installed or is about to install.

“I love it. Our potential and possibility is just really, really remarkable,” Boyer said.

Allison Enters, who is teaching the class that is working on the driveways, said the students in the program are great — they get to the site early and work hard all day. When they’re done, she said, some will join the union.

“Some of the kids make it in, some go back to their villages and work on projects,” she said.

The center wasn’t the only project this summer. She said Job Corps also worked on a horse arena for a therapeutic horse riding organization. Smith said Job Corps gets involved with projects usually at the request of an organization that needs help.

“We don’t want to do projects that are for-profit,” she said, explaining that the center doesn’t want to compete with private contractors.

But this kind of real-world experience is invaluable.

“We welcome this because we can’t have this opportunity on-center,” she said, using Job Corps-speak to describe worked done at the program’s Palmer facility.

On-center, she said, there’s just snow plowing to do. But, Enters noted, in winters like this past one there is a whole lot of snow to plow.

Boyer said the recycling center project started as one to fix the center’s rutted driveway, but as she waited for permits the students did other things like filling in a trench dug to bury wires for a wind generator being installed and smoothed out the parking lot where big rocks made it difficult to walk. Out back, they compacted dirt to build a better approach to a gigantic storage tent. Building the tent was another Job Corps project. Prior to the compaction, “it was a real mess,” Boyer said of the driveway. “They’ve just been awesome.”

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.