EKCEP Taps into Private Funding Source to Help Knox Countian Jacob Barnard enter Work Experience Program, Land on Career Path in Aviation

Jacob Barnard always had an interest in aviation, but he wasn’t sure it was the right career for him. That changed in the summer of 2022 when he entered a work experience program at a nearby airport.

Then he knew for sure.

Jacob Barnard

A native of Knox County, Barnard had worked at his local grocery store while in high school and during summers helped his father, who managed a Sears in nearby Middlesboro, KY. When he learned about the career services available at the KCEOC JobSight in Barbourville, he thought it would be a good fit to do something different for the summer and decided to enroll.

A partner in the Kentucky Career Center JobSight network, KCEOC provides career and employment services in Knox County under contract with Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program (EKCEP). While those services are normally covered by critically important Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) funds, EKCEP also works to obtain non-WIOA funding from other sources, including private funders, that can play an important role in bolstering services for Eastern Kentuckians. For Barnard, KCEOC was provided with non-WIOA funding to cover a work experience program that essentially confirmed for him that he was on the right career path.

“Through the work program I chose to work at the airport in London,” he said. “I’d always had an interest in aviation. So, I was like, I’ll work at the airport this summer through this program to kind of … make sure that’s really what I wanted to be around. And that really helped me.” 

Through the use of EKCEP’s private funding, KCEOC paid for the cost of the work experience and covered Barnard’s wages during his job placement in London. And it was an important placement for him, he added, as the work experience through JobSight not only helped him determine a career path, but also provided him with a salary that will go to help pay for his education. He just recently earned his commercial pilot certification and will go to Charlotte, NC, for flight instructor school. He said he hopes to eventually work for an airline.

“[The work experience] just kind of helps because they give you basically the pick of where you want to work, just as long as that workplace approves of it,” he said. “It’s good pay as well, especially if you are in high school.”

Barnard said the staff at his local JobSight was nice and easy to work with, and he would recommend anyone looking for a new job to at least look into enrolling at their local career center and see if their services might be right for them, too.

“I enjoyed it, and I was happy I had the opportunity to do that for summer,” he said.

While Barnard’s case illustrates the effectiveness of workforce programs, it also demonstrates how workforce agencies like EKCEP can utilize a mix of funding—both public and private—to ensure youth workers have options available to help them decide on the right career paths for them, said EKCEP Executive Director Becky Carnes-Miller.

“Stories like Jacob’s are precisely the ones we want to see in the world of workforce,” she added. “And knowing that EKCEP also has the capacity to utilize non-WIOA funding sources to provide crucial services makes the work we’re doing with our partners in Eastern Kentucky that much more important and effective for the workers and businesses in our service area.”

If you’re interested in applying for career and employment services, visit jobsight.org/locations to find your nearest Kentucky Career Center JobSight and contact a career advisor to get started. 

EKCEP, a nonprofit workforce development agency headquartered in Hazard, Ky., serves the citizens of 23 Appalachian coalfield counties. The agency provides an array of workforce development services and operates the Kentucky Career Center JobSight network of workforce centers, which provide access to more than a dozen state and federal programs that offer employment and training assistance for job seekers and employers all under one roof. Learn more about us at http://www.ekcep.org, http://www.jobsight.org and http://www.facebook.com/ekcep.