This summer, The Timken Company welcomed local high school seniors to their corporate headquarters in North Canton, Ohio, as part of the Ģý at Stark Rising Scholars Summer Institute, led by Academic Program Coordinator LaTrese Sanders.
“I like how we have a global company right in our backyard in Canton, how close it is to us and how much they contribute to America from right here in Canton,” said Ontrell Hunter, a senior at Fairless High School.
The Rising Scholars Program combines mentoring with assistance from local communities and businesses to provide support for young adults beginning in ninth grade. The program helps prepare promising youth for life after high school in hopes they will reinvest their talents in their community.
“Rising Scholars is vital to Timken because we’re working to address workforce attrition in Stark County,” said Shanna Ebert, manager of community relations at Timken. “When young people grow up here, we want them to build their career here – that’s why investing in these students matters for our company and our community.”
GlenOak High School senior Savannah Alazaus, who plans to go into the medical field after attending Ģý Stark, said that the program has helped her gain confidence, meet new people and learn about potential career paths.
“Being in Rising Scholars for the last four years has taught me a lot about not being afraid to speak up,” Savannah said. “It opens a lot of opportunities, and that allows new career paths to open up. I liked going on field trips, meeting nurses and being able to see what kinds of careers we could be looking for.”
Timken has been a major donor to the Ģý Stark Rising Scholars Fund for the last five years. This fund provides support for the program and scholarships for participants. Students who complete the high-school portion of the program are eligible for a Rising Scholars scholarship of $2,000 per year for up to four years at Ģý Stark.
“They’re one of our biggest donors, and I just wanted to say thank you so much to Timken for donating to Rising Scholars and helping students like me further our education,” Savannah said.
Financial support is only one piece of Timken’s support for the program, which aims to help local students maximize their all-important high school years and focus on making well-informed career choices after graduation.
“We’ve supported the scholarship program for many years, but this is only our second year hosting students at Timken to show them the opportunities at a global manufacturer headquartered in their own backyard,” Ebert explained. “Many students are drawn to engineering, but it takes more than engineers to keep a company like ours running. We aim to give exposure to a wide range of careers.”
As part of this experience, students toured the facility, learned about careers in engineering, customer service, global marketing, finance and executive assistance. They met with Timken employees in each of these fields, learned about what they do and had the chance to ask questions. There was a one-to-one ratio of employees to students to facilitate conversations and provide multiple perspectives, and the career types highlighted were chosen based on the students’ interests.
Knox Hughes, a Fairless High School senior, was excited to learn more about engineering and Timken’s work in the field during the visit.
“I like learning about all the career paths that we can go into in the future, and what we could want to go to college for,” Knox said. “I want to be an engineer when I grow up, and I learned a lot about mechanical engineering today.”
During the session on global marketing and executive assisting, the students met with Mark Stangl, MBA ’01, global market manager at Timken, who attended both the Stark and Kent campuses. Stangl encouraged the students to think differently about career exploration and finding their path, framing it in terms of problem-solving.
“What kinds of problems do you enjoy solving?” he asked. “Having a passion for what you go into is key.”
During their visit, students had the opportunity to see diverse types and sizes of bearings that Timken makes, learn how they work, and hear how widespread bearings are in our economy and the essential role they play our everyday lives – from cars to medical equipment to wind turbines. The students also had hands-on experience building their own bearings by hand.
Ebert emphasized the importance of organizations and individuals coming together to support programs like Rising Scholars because they give local students a head start on their future and provide significant benefits to the community.
“This generation is our future, and we must invest in them,” Ebert explained.
“It can’t fall to one person or one company - it takes a whole community in Stark County coming together to support and uplift young people. When we do that, the possibilities for them – and for our community – are limitless.”
If you would like to support or learn more about the Rising Scholar program, please contact Beth Fuciu at 330-244-3225.