P a r a m o u n t
pulse Beat
March 2015
www.paramountchamber.com
Serving the Community Since 1990
State of the City – 2015 The Paramount Chamber of Commerce recently held its annual State of the City Address at Paramount Park Plaza. The event was sponsored by Paramount Petroleum and more than 150 business and community leaders were in attendance. Jon Tanklage, President of the Paramount Chamber began by saying, “The Paramount Chamber’s focus has been and always will be to promote economic growth in the City of Paramount. We do this by encouraging local spending, and raising awareness about the products and services that are available in the community.” Tanklage then spoke about various programs and services provided by the Chamber including; printing 240,000 copies of the Pulse Beat, packaging welcome packets which are hand delivered via their partnership with Emmanuel Reformed Church, offering free business counseling to entrepreneurs and business owners, hosting monthly educational workshops, providing monthly Networking Breakfasts, and putting on community events including; The State of the City Address, Job Fair, Golf Classic, Paramount Carnival and Community Fair, and a Poker Tournament. He closed by saying, “I work with a lot of great people at the Chamber and have honestly benefitted from the relationships I’ve made as a member. The staff does great work, and the Board of Directors, and Ambassadors are a truly committed group of individuals. We hope you like what we’re doing and continue to support the Chamber in its efforts to promote Paramount.” Following Tanklage was Paramount Unified School District Superintendent Herman Mendez. The Superintendent began by introducing the award winning Paramount High school choir under the direction of Sandra Wilson-Espinoza.
Paramount City Manager Linda Benedetti-Leal at the 2015 State of the City address.
Chamber President Jon Tanklage
PUSD Superintendent Herman Mendez
Mayor Diane Martinez
City Manager Linda Benedetti-Leal
Their performance was entertaining and well received by those in attendance. Mendez began his presentation by saying “Our school moniker or tag line states Great things are happening in Paramount Schools, and along with our Board of Education, who are here today, we have indeed many examples to be proud of that support the statement.” Graduation rates are at their highest level, dropout rates continue to decline, students continue to receive the prestigious Gates Millennium Scholarship (18 so far), Paramount schools are recognized
for their quality programs and include 3 Designated National Forum Schools to Watch middle schools, a 2014 California Model Continuation School and five Honor Roll schools recognized by the 2013 California Business for Education Excellence (CBEE) organization. To prepare students for the future the district is focusing on the 4 Cs – the skills of collaboration, communication, creativity and critical thinking. He then spoke about the districts career and technical education (CTE) programs available to students ; Engineering, Medical
and Media. He then shared the following statistics about CTE programs; high school students involved in CTE are more engaged, perform better and have higher graduation rates. A person with a CTE-related associate degree or credential will earn on average $4,000 - $19,000 more a year than a person with a humanities associate degree. In Connecticut, every public dollar invested in community colleges returns $16.40 over the course of a students’ career, and the state’s economy receives $5 billion annually in income from this investment. CTE addresses
the needs of high-growth industries and helps close the skills gap. He closed by saying skilled trades are the hardest jobs to fill in the United States, with recent data citing 806,000 jobs open in the trade, transportation and utilities sector and 293,000 jobs open in manufacturing. Health care occupations, many of which require an associate degree or less, make up 12 of the 20 fastest growing occupations. After Superintendent Mendez spoke Mayor Diane Martinez briefly addressed the audi-
Paramount Chamber of Commerce
pulse beat
15357 Paramount Boulevard, Paramount, CA 90723
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