NaviGo’s River Cities Project lead to full time job offers for its 2020 graduates interested in logistics careers.
NaviGo teams up with the River Cities school districts to focus on high-need career sectors like IT, healthcare, and logistics. Because of our proximity to the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, our region has a strong logistics infrastructure in place with incredible growth job growth opportunities. Students in the NaviGo program were invited to dual-enroll at Gateway Community and Technical College’s Logistics/Supply Chain Training hub, and then offered an opportunity to get on-the-job experience in logistics co-ops.
Jerson Bravo, a 2020 graduate of Newport High School had his co-op at Wayfair in Hebron.
“As a co-op student, I learned the value of hard work while working at Wayfair,” said Bravo. “It’s a nice workplace to develop lots of responsibility and to have an open view about how real life is. The people are what make it a comfortable place to work, and (they) have made me feel like I want to start a career in logistics and supply chain management.” Bravo is now employed full-time with Wayfair.
Davey Johnson is the Sr. Talent Acquisition Specialist at DHL. He said his supply chain company is already looking to take on more students for the 2020-21 school year. “We are quite pleased with our partnership with NaviGo and the hard-working co-op students DHL has employed so far. It is a great opportunity to share our passion with youths in a position to make decisions on a career path, and we hope they share our passion and build great careers with DHL.”
DHL offered eight students a full-time job, and five students accepted. 2020 Dayton HS graduate Collin Hollingsworth was one of them.
“I felt like the co-op program at DHL was great. It was a wonderful way to get real-world job experience during school. I feel the program was successful in every way possible. I built bonds and friendships while getting an education and money in my pocket.”
DHL and Wayfair joined other logistics companies including Cengage, Verst Logistics, Kroger, Atlas Air, Legion Logistics and CVG for this program. All students are now Certified Logistics Associates (CLA).
Lorraine O’Moore leads the River Cities Project with a passion for student success.
“Working with high-school students in preparing them for going on co-op is extremely rewarding,” said O’Moore. “Monitoring their placements and hearing the amazing feedback from their worksite mentors, and from the students themselves, lets me know that we are on the right track in preparing young people for success, and in meeting the needs of local businesses by establishing talent pipelines within the high schools. The fact that all students were offered full-time employment once the co-ops ended just reiterates the need for this kind of collaboration, something that Northern Kentucky does very well indeed.”