Career Outreach Program Features Maverick Laundry

Maverick Industrial Laundry Services, Weslaco, TX, recently joined several area businesses that hosted a group of public school counselors who are trying to gain a better understanding of what skills local employers require from young people entering the labor market, according to local news reports.

General Manager Rick Cortez told the educators, who were joined by local economic development officials, that Maverick is upgrading its systems with technology to better serve its area healthcare customers. “Right now we have a process in which we are using radio frequency (identification) chips,” he said, speaking of the technology that aids in the processing of roughly 40,000 lbs. a day. “It’s a little bitty chip that we sew onto anything we want so that we know every time it comes through this plant. We know how many times it’s been washed, how many times it’s been serviced.”

Other businesses that the educators toured included a grocery store distribution center and a refrigerated warehouse for produce bound mainly for restaurants in this area of far Southeast Texas.

The local outreach effort is designed to help counselors guide students to select career-track programs, which new state rules require them to do in order to graduate. These career “endorsements, or “paths,” are required whether or not the student intends to go to college, the article said. Examples of endorsements/paths can include business and industry, public services, multidisciplinary studies and others. Click here for details.