You are here

Not Just for the Trades

Wednesday, January 15, 2020

At first, Marshall Lautenbach, a student at Bonduel High School in Bonduel, WI, was unsure about the Youth Apprentice (YA) program. “I thought it was just for kids going to trade school,” he had decided before hearing more about it through Wolf River YA Consortium administrator Laura Warning, who met with juniors and seniors to discuss the program. His own journey, however, would prove to him that YA opportunities exist for all students.

The YA idea stuck with Marshall. While looking for summer employment, he learned about a YA opening at Reinhart Foodservice in Shawano from a previous YA student, and he thought it might be a good fit. Marshall filled out the Youth Apprenticeship application and the Reinhart application, interviewed for the position, and was ultimately selected by Reinhart for the program.

Student photo
Marshall Lautenbach at the steel-raising event for Reinhart Foodservice.

Initially, Marshall’s job at Reinhart consisted of processing orders for delivery and printing stickers for orders to be picked and packed. This helped Marshall decide not only what he wanted to do after graduation, but also what he didn’t want to do. “I do not want to be sitting in a chair eight hours a day. I really want to be out meeting as many people as I can.”

At the same time, Bonduel High School offered Marshall other academic and career planning (ACP) experiences that helped shape his future decisions. The school’s annual Success Day gave him the opportunity to visit colleges and businesses in the area. “Getting kids exposed to colleges and having them thinking about what they want to do with their future is super important. They helped me prepare for college in that respect,” Marshall said.

The business classes he took with Bonduel business education teacher Duke Copp helped bring him closer to what he wanted to do, too. “I learned what kind of business I like and what kind of business I don’t like,” Marshall reflected. “Accounting is really not my thing! I learned I really like the communication aspects, doing presentations with Powerpoints, etc.”

During his two years with Reinhart Foodservice, Marshall may have started in clerical work, but that and his other ACP activities motivated him to ask for additional customer service experience, and then it all came together for him. “Working in customer service helped me validate that I do want to go into business and work with customers,” he noted.

Marshall leaves for college this fall with a sense of direction. He wants to go into interactive web management and communication, where he would be responsible for maintaining social media communications for a company. Just as important, he knows that if he doesn’t like it, he has the experience and confidence to determine his next move.

—Lynn Aprill, Director of the Center on Education for Economic Development; CESA 8 Youth Apprenticeship Coordinator, Academic and Career Planning Coordinator, Inspire Northeast Wisconsin Director; and CATE Coordinator