EDITORS NOTE: In December, Bellefontaine Examiner reporter Sue Pitts wrote a feature story about a graduate in OHP's Adult Education Health Information Technology program. Pitts' story brought attention to the storyline that can apply to the lives of many adults in this current economic climate. Job loss, recession, foreclosures, loss of benefits, a shift in the global workforce and demands for employees. These are the issues facing adults everywhere, especially in Ohio. Ohio Hi-Point's Adult & Continuing Education Division has responded rapidly to the needs of thousands of adults, helping them gain new skills, refresh old ones, or, like Karen Russo in this story, blaze a pathway to an entirely new career.
With mixed emotions, former Middleburg resident Karen Russo stood in 2007 among sobbing Siemens Energy & Automation co-workers as they learned they were losing the jobs they expected to retire from, wondering what the future held for her.
After 14 years of service to the local factory, the 40-something single mother of two found herself starting over, but while she faced losing her only source of income, she saw it as an opportunity to find a new direction and new hope.
"I had been expecting it for five or six years, or maybe I was hoping, but it didn't really surprise me when they said it," she recalled. "I had people standing around me crying, because they were losing their jobs. They were devastated."
After the announcement, she said attitudes changed and the stress level was so high, she hated going to work. And to add insult to injury, the soon-to-be jobless had to train their Mexican counterparts who would take over their work in Mexico.
The closing was actually a sort of blessing in disguise, she said.
"Standing all day on a line, using screw guns with too much power was really killing my body," Ms. Russo said. "Deep down inside I was thanking God. Finally I could get out of this dead-end job."
While some may, Ms. Russo doesn't harbor resentment for her former employer or the foreign workers brought in locally for her and others to train on their jobs that were headed south.
"They were really nice people," she said, "it wasn't their fault they were getting our jobs.
"And Siemens could have just closed the doors and said, 'Sorry about your luck,' but they didn't."
Instead, the company offered employee buyouts, continued their insurance for several months and steered them toward additional employment and assistance
services. And because the job loss fell under the North American Free Trade Agreement, federal assistance with education, insurance and unemployment compensation also was available to the displaced workers for two years, she said.
A year later, she took the buyout and a big step forward. With five other freshman students, most of whom who also lost their factory jobs, she started a yearlong journey in January through the Health Information Technology program at the Ohio Hi-Point Career Center.
Everything was covered through one entity or the other; tuition, books, etc. "There is no way I could have ever paid for that.
"This was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. Free education and I get to do something else besides stand on a line and do a mindless job.
"I thought I would really stress over it, but when I no longer had to go (to the factory), I felt great. My stress was over even though I didn't have a job."
Out of the uncertainty, she has found a new career in the field and in the process made five new friends in classmates and fellow graduates Kevin Anderson of Belle Center, and Gena Francis, Brenda Hodges, Michelle Owens and Mary Ann Smith, all of Bellefontaine. Some of her fellow graduates plan to continue their education, teach or are already utilizing their new skills in new positions.
"It's been a wild ride; going back to school. My old brain had to adjust to learning again," Ms. Russo admitted. "But the subjects were interesting and it kept me occupied."
Her goal for the next five or six years is to work for The Ohio State University Medical Center in Columbus, where she was raised.
"I feel like I am starting all over again, but you know 50 is the new 40," she joked.
Adult and Continuing Education director Darlene Chiles recently reported an increase in enrollment in adult programs, noting that more than 3,000 adults were served in Fiscal Year 2009, eclipsing previous years. Additionally, the Department of Job & Family Services has located a temporary satellite office on the campus as the number of residents looking for another line of work continues to grow.
HIT classes for the next group of 15 began in January. Contact ACE at Ohio Hi-Point, 599-3010, for more information on a wide range of adult class offerings.
For more information on our Adult Education programs, visit us online at ohiohipoint.com.
Special thanks to Sue Pitts for allowing us to reprint this story.
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