ROANOKE COUNTY, Va. (WDBJ) – Real-world experiences and opportunities can sometimes open the minds of our younger generations to careers they might not have even thought about.

“Every day is new and so I think that that can really translate well to the next generation,” said Jenny Constantin, Engineering Manager.

Students from Glenvar High School recently visited Mack Trucks.

“I just thought it was really interesting all the different jobs that people had and how each person kind of depended on each other for the work,” said Sophia Hammersley, a student.

“It was a very good experience to come here and see how the assembly line works here and how this stuff goes together,” said Jace Stager, a student.

They were able to take a tour of the facility and learn more about what goes into the manufacturing process.

“If they can come up early and start to see and taste and understand and not to fear that manufacturing is a difficult environment,” said Antonio Servidoni, VP of Roanoke Valley Operations.

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The goal of the visit was to get students thinking about careers right here in our hometowns.

“I can be an accountant. I can be more into the coding. I can be more into fabrication. It can be more into many different fields that you can enjoy doing. So it opens their mind to believe that there’s a lot of things that they can do inside a facility like this,” said Servidoni.

“We get to build the Mack truck, and we get to see the Mack trucks on the road. And so there’s a real life application piece to what we’re doing, where we can see the work and see how we make an impact,” said Constantin.

Officials say more students are interested in CTE programs.

“In career and technical education, we’ve only seen growth and more and more students interested in coming to our tech center…Career and technical education is not just career. It’s not just going off to college. It’s often a hybrid of what students need to be able to get a good launching point into a career,” said Jason Suhr, Career and Technical Education Director.

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