Vantage to celebrate 40th anniversary

VW independent/submitted information

“Get the edge” — Vantage Career Center connects real people with real jobs, helping make real livelihoods for students and their families. Vantage has been helping high school students and adult learners for 40 years.

The real-life stories of people whose lives have been touched by Vantage staff are shared throughout the school district. The staff continuously helps students who are working full-time jobs, who come to school sleepy, and share their paychecks with a single parent to help make ends meet.

Vantage staff helps young people who know what they want to do in life and throw themselves wholeheartedly into their education to make that dream come true. Teachers and administrators encourage students to stick with it, come to school, go to work, and know it will make a difference. And there’s no greater joy than listening to these students thank a teacher or staff member for helping to steer them on the right path.

Career technical education is a vital part of local workforce development and economic development. Why? Because Vantage alumni tend to stay in the local communities, working as auto technicians, welders, secretaries and office support, network systems analysts, programmers, machinists, cosmetologists, and healthcare STNAs.

There are so many jobs that the students and alumni fill. They live locally, spending their paychecks in local communities, which help local businesses survive. Retention and expansion of local business is 90 percent of economic development, especially in rural Ohio, and Vantage alumni area a huge percentage of the community.

Over the past 40 years, more than 8,000 high school students have completed career tech programs at Vantage. Most have used the skills they learned at to become successful in their chosen field.  Many bring pride and distinction to themselves and to Vantage through their performance and achievement in careers and community involvement.

Those extremely talented and determined individuals lived their dream, became entrepreneurs and started their own business, and now they employ Vantage graduates. All because of the education, skills, and confidence they gained at Vantage.

Vantage offers high school training in 16 different career programs, as well as a variety of customized training through its Ohio Technical Center for interested employers, and full-time workforce programs for displaced workers and anyone who wants a career change.

Real people in real jobs; people connecting with their local communities; Vantage staff members “get it”. They’ve done it for 40 years.

The Vantage career technical planning district covers Van Wert and Paulding counties, and parts of Putnam and Mercer counties. Vantage provides juniors, seniors, and adults of all ages with entry-level and advanced job skills to find employment. Vantage is proud of what they do. Staff knows it’s about real people wanting to improve their lives, looking for a better job, or their first job, or a second income to start their own business or help out at home.

An annual open house and 40th anniversary celebration will be held Monday, February 22, from 5-7:30 p.m. Local eateries will serve up a sampling of culinary treats at “A Taste of Vantage” for a small cost.  Senator Cliff Hite will present a resolution from the Ohio Senate, and the inaugural class of inductees to the Vantage Alumni Hall of Fame will be recognized. Consider attending to celebrate Vantage’s 40 years of changing lives.

Vantage Career Center thanks local community members for supporting the mission of preparing students and adults to be workforce ready for the past 40 years.