BUSINESS WATCH:OCC churns out the workers

COSTA MESA — John Speegle signed up for technology classes at Orange Coast College last summer so he could acquire needed skills for his Long Beach business. He acquired a top employee, too.

Speegle, the president of the industrial equipment repair firm Field Technology, has a large staff to operate his machines, but it dawned on him that his own operating skills had fallen behind the times. To catch up, he enrolled in a shop class at OCC — and when he met first-year student Huynh Phuong in the shop, he saw a prospect for his company. Earlier this year, Speegle hired Phuong as a full-time machine operator.

“I watched him work through the machines and he’s got a lot of potential,” Speegle said. “He’s worked out to be a good employee.”

Phoung, who lives in Westminster, is one of a number of OCC technology students who graduate into local industries — or, in some cases, get jobs before they’ve graduated. The department has such a good reputation for turning out workers that companies post want ads on the OCC website, donate equipment, and sometimes visit campus to recruit. The website this summer has featured classifieds from companies seeking machinists, architects, even an assistant superintendent for a custom homebuilder.

“Almost all the students who want to work get a job,” said Joe Cortez, a professor of machine technology who is teaching courses this summer.

Eric Smith, vice president of the Irvine kitchen and equipment contractor TriMark Raygal, posted an ad for project managers after attending OCC’s job fair in the spring. Smith, who took technology classes at OCC in the early 1970s, said he recruited at the college because he considered it an exceptional program.

His company, he said, has hired about 15 OCC students in the last three decades. Most often, it recruits students who are done with two years of courses and not planning to transfer to a university.

“It becomes kind of like a trade school,” Smith said. “They spend two years over there studying, and then they enter the work force.”