When I graduate from Applied Technologies, I hope to be a heavy equipment technician. The internship with Empire Cat has been really helpful to me, and has helped me gain more knowledge of what I want to do in the future.

She is one of those students that has been great at just getting into the projects, really taking a hands-on approach where she's able to focus in and learn a lot of skills because of her involvement and her passion in automotive and at Empire Cat, with the diesel side of it.

There is a chance that from my internship with Empire Cat and ALA, that I can get directly hired from them if I do well enough based on what my teachers say about me. The fact that I could graduate with my high school diploma and some sort of certificate with automotive helps out a lot, it gives me more opportunities to do something I would like to do rather than just start from nothing.

The benefit of the students going through this program, this internship program, is they get that work-based learning opportunity to come in and experience what it's like to work in industry, and it gives them clear direction on if this is something they want to do for a career or not. Our target is a 50% conversion rate of students becoming full time employees at Empire, and they have several opportunities to do that when they graduate from the internship program. They can either direct hire into Empire if they show the skills necessary to work here, or they can join our two-year apprenticeship program. It's a paid apprenticeship, so they get paid to come learn how to be a technician at Empire.