This month, Swingle participated in PLANET’s 38th Annual Student Career Days in Fort Collins, CO. We’ve attended this industry-recruiting event at various colleges and universities around the country for about the past two decades. This year we were fortunate to have it in our own backyard at Colorado State University! We consider this to be the premier recruiting and career-networking event the Green Industry has to offer. It has provided us with several student interns and full time employees, as well as provided us the opportunity to network with various faculty and educators. High expectations were met this year as the event drew participation from 65 schools from the U.S. and Canada, with over 800 students in attendance.
With the event in Colorado this year, we were able to provide the opportunity for more of our own employees to attend the events. Furthermore, we were also able to have several schools physically tour our facility. During these tours, we were able to show them first-hand the type of work we do, and the specific careers we have to offer to students like them.
Below is a brief recap of the events Swingle participated in, and/or volunteered with:
Wednesday 3/19, 1-3pm: Swingle hosted tours of our facility:
University of Massachusetts (13 Students/Faculty)
Palo Alto (3 Students/Faculty)
Thursday 3/20: John Gibson, Dave Vine and Brock McRea attended the PLANET Academic Excellence Foundation Scholarship Presentation. At this event, Pallace Schnittker of Kansas State University was presented with the Swingle-Tolkacz Family Scholarship in the amount of $1000.
Friday 3/21: Dave Vine, Brock McRea, Mike Masters, and Matt Ward attended the Student Career Fair on the CSU Campus. This is the largest student-recruiting event the industry offers, and we likely met all 800+ students, identifying several possible student interns and full time employees.
Saturday 3/22: Saturday was a full day of student competitions. Events ranged from Arboriculture Techniques, Plant Identification, Cost Estimating and anything in between. Deacon Maloney was on-site at the climbing competition, encouraging and speaking with students about techniques and the field in general. Michael Guenther volunteered as a panel judge for the Sales Competition. Swingle also donated two brand new vehicles to be used by students in the Truck and Trailer competition. The day culminated with Brock, Matt, Mike, Dave, and John Gibson hosting a dinner at the Marriott which was attended by nearly 85 students and faculty from the following colleges and universities: North Dakota State University, Illinois Central College, Oklahoma State University – OKC, Pennsylvania College of Technology, Rochester Community & Technical College, Shasta College. At the dinner, John presented the opportunities Swingle has to offer current and graduating students.
Tuesday 3/25, 10-12pm: Swingle hosted tours of our facility:
Tolles Career & Technical Center (Ohio), 7 Students/Faculty
Hinds Community College (Mississippi), 9 Students/Faculty
