MADAWASKA, Maine — Students from Fort Kent, Madawaska, Caribou and Wisdom high schools took part Thursday in a career exploration seminar and mill tour at Twin Rivers Paper Inc. in Madawaska, focusing on engineering.
Mike Harm, the company’s technical services and product development manager, said the event was a way to help build the future of the company.
“We want to recruit people from The County,” Harm said. The company anticipates losing some key personnel in various technical areas due to retirements in the next five to 10 years, he said.
The company worked with the University of Maine’s Pulp and Paper Foundation to organize the event. Twin Rivers is one of the industry partners that works with the foundation and the university on co-op and internship programs.
Offering programs such as the one Thursday allows the company to get a look at potential future employees and foundation staff to promote UMaine programs that benefit the state’s paper industry.
Foundation president Carrie Enos, herself a UMaine graduate and former engineer in the industry, spoke to students about the different engineering programs offered at the Orono campus and how each student’s various interests could find an engineering application.
“Engineering is a way to implement science to benefit society,” she told them. “All personality types can find a career in engineering.”
Fort Kent junior Devin Vosine already has a job at T.N.T. Road Company, where he gets to solve problems and be creative.
“I like to design and build things,” Voisine said Thursday. “I’ve been looking at chemical and civil engineering.”
Olivia Gervais, a junior at Wisdom, said she is interested in bioengineering.
“I really like science and math, so this would be a great way to use that,” she said.
Gervais said she has already explored engineering and science careers at some summer camps.
Prior to touring the paper making machines and labs inside the mill, students learned about the paper products Twin Rivers makes and the niche markets it has been able to take advantage of, even as many traditional paper markets have shrunk.
Innovation and research have been key to Twin Rivers’ success, Harm commented. The company offers career opportunities for mechanical and chemical engineers, environmental engineers and engineers that work on the product development and production side.
Following the tour and presentations, mill engineers and staff had lunch with the students and answered questions.
Students interested in attending engineering programs at the University of Maine may qualify for a special foundation scholarship. Valued at up to $36,000, the scholarship would cover four years of in-state tuition. Scholarship students are also required to take part in two full-time paid summer internships.
To date, scholarship recipients have found 100 percent job placement, according to Enos, with starting annual salaries averaging between $70- and $75,000. Being part of the engineering programs at U. Maine also puts students in the middle of a global network of graduates and corporate contacts, making for varied career options, she added.
Enos encouraged students attending Thursday’s program to ask themselves what they want out of a career and out of their lives.
“Don’t do a job for the money,” she advised. “Having a career you enjoy is better.”
