As soon as he realized the extent of Slater's untapped potential, he began to take the young man very seriously indeed. Slater was well underway on that project when the internship ended, so Ward offered him a permanent part-time job during his senior year at North Kansas City High School. Today Slater works roughly 30 hours a week for Wilfarm while attending college, and Ward would be more than happy to hire him as a full-timer some day. The Information Technology Association of America sponsors a national program to address the IT skills gap in grades K-12. But companies must have well-planned programs and not just leave the students to fend for themselves.
Many executives are reluctant to fill their IT staff with high school students.
MAY HAVE BEEN BORN without sight, but he sees his career as a computer programmer very clearly. I just want to be productive. Fla. There he learned to program in Assembler and Cobol, skills he was eager to put to work. I didn't want to go through four years of college and not get hired as a programmer. After graduation, Larson found a job at the Milwaukee Insurance Co., where he was a member of the IT staff for 26 years, developing and maintaining a variety of insurance-related applications.