Custom Aluminum Offers High School Students Internship Experience
By: Chris Walker
S
everal years ago, Custom Aluminum CEO Steve Dillett and President Shane Tredup were looking for a way to give back to the Genoa and Hampshire area.
They found it by developing a work-study program for high school students and a summer internship program for those 18 years of age and older. The offerings are an extension of Custom Aluminum’s longstanding emphasis on having a knowledgeable staff and valuing its employees as it offers onsite educational classes from entry level to advanced concepts. “Those two gentlemen were looking for a way to offer something to students where they could learn about manufacturing,” said Alex Dumoulin, sales engineering manager for Custom Aluminum. “We come to the schools and talk about the program. In the past we’ve been able to visit schools and meet with industrial tech classrooms and talk to professors but with the pandemic, the plan is to make the most of it that we can.” The work study program affords high school seniors from Genoa-Kingston and Hampshire the opportunity to attend school in the morning and join Custom Aluminum in the afternoon for four hours a day, five days a week and learn about the engineering side of the business. “They create prints, all sorts of drawings, so they get a general feel for that,” Dumoulin said. “Before COVID we’d have retired professors from Kishwaukee (Community College)and Waubonsee (Community College) come in and teach sections
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as well. It’s a year-long program so they get a lot of exposure so that by the time they are done with senior year, and depending on their performance, they can receive a two-year, full-ride scholarship to community college.” Alanna Wilcox, who graduated from NIU a couple years ago with her master’s degree in industrial and systems engineering, has been employed with Custom Aluminum for seven years. She spent her afternoons during her senior year at Genoa-Kingston High School learning about various aspects of the business through the work-study program. “I had no intention of doing it because it didn’t exist my freshman year and when I went into high school I wanted to be a chef,” she said. “But doing different projections and drawings in a technical way was something that interested me and some of my sophomore friends did a pilot program and it sounded interesting to me and I always did well in math and science.” Today, Wilcox’s interests have led her to her current role as samples manager at Custom Aluminum. In a short time, she’s also been a computer aided design drafter, engineering supervisor and samples engineer for Custom Aluminum. “I actually ran the work-study program for a few years while I was still in college and taught them about the manufacturing,” she said. “One of the biggest things I remember is I did a survey at the end of the year and the one thing they always said was they were nervous to come into a room of adults so it was nice relating to a young adult.”
www.genoaareachamber.com
1/26/22 1:05 PM
