Cool Equipment Gets Job Done at Career Fair

At 0900 hours Thursday, an M-110 Howitzer with a 24-foot gun lumbered through the main gate of Buena High School without resistance. An armed pilot swooped his McDonnell Douglas 530-F helicopter low over the school, landing in a rear parking lot.

Officials canceled classes. Left to fend for themselves, scores of students swarmed the cafeteria while hundreds more headed for the front gate where they were met by Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, National Guard, police, fire and emergency rescue personnel.

For some, the number of varied professionals visiting Buena’s career fair was overwhelming. Most students appeared to gravitate toward whoever brought the neatest equipment.

“We won the war,” boasted Marcos Martinez, 15, as he climbed out of the driver’s hatch of a tank that Ventura National Guardsmen exhibited to entice students.

Besides the military, school officials invited a masseur, a tax consultant and an aesthetician--and dozens of other professionals--to talk about their jobs with students and answer questions.

Aware that people often choose their professions haphazardly, the job fair was designed to expose students to career possibilities they might not otherwise have considered.

“We decided to include all grades so that students would see the link between being at Buena High School and their future,” said Lera St. Louis, the school’s career counselor.

St. Louis cited a 1990 U.S. Labor Department study that concluded that teenagers entering the job market in the 1990s are likely to change their career--”stepping-stone” jobs notwithstanding--four to five times.

Sixteen-year old Scott Wightman was one of half a dozen young men captivated by a five-minute, MTV-like video with an energetic beat showing Coast Guard divers in orange survival suits rescuing the crew of a sinking oil tanker.

Still unsure of what profession to pursue, Scott said, “The Coast Guard seems pretty action-packed.”

After the three-hour career fair, Scott said that driving a tank or operating the bulky equipment used by bomb squads might interest him.

“I think it would be interesting to control that big of a machine,” he said.

Some young women appeared similarly drawn to more daring jobs. “We’re all planning to graduate and join the National Guard,” said Gabi Ruiz, a 10th-grader.

Gabi said the tank driver told her how others reacted when he drove the several-ton vehicle to Buena High that morning.

“Everyone was looking at him,” said Gabi. “He got a lot of attention and that’s cool.”

Christian Martinez, who plans to join the National Guard with Gabi, adds: “You know, a Hispanic woman coming out of that hatch would be really cool. It would be like, ‘Wow! She did do something with her life.’ ”