Mr. C., The Skills Sergeant

By Richard Woodbury/El Paso

A prime reason for the labor shortage is that legions of young job applicants are rejected for lack of skills. Not everywhere, however: when businesses in El Paso need trained workers, they know they can find them in an unlikely- looking place. Ringed with a barbed-wire fence and patrolled by guards, the white stucco compound alongside Interstate 10 could pass for a correctional institution. But the 440 blue-uniformed trainees at the El Paso Job Corps Center are being nurtured, not punished. Since 1970 the center has taken in 8,000 barrio youths and returned them to the community a few months later as mechanics, cooks and nurse's aides.

The success rate has been high. Fully 95% of the center's students complete a six-month term in one of eight vocational programs. Of those who graduate, 96% have been placed in jobs, and the vast majority stay employed for the long term. With that record, the El Paso center has ranked No. 1 for the past ten years among the 107 Job Corps units in the U.S. Declares Director David Carrasco: "The community is sold on us. We're turning out a proven product."

Nearly everyone gives the credit to Carrasco. A onetime Peace Corpsman and athletic director at American University in Washington, the 68-year-old "Mr. C.," as he is known, enforces a boot-camp regimen. He and his 23 instructors impose fines and extra chores on students who fail to keep their rooms clean or who litter the yards. The youths must stay on the eight-acre grounds except on weekends and Wednesday nights, when they are granted leave. They put in an eleven-hour day of training, academic instruction, physical exercise and cleanup. The youths train on the job for a month before graduating to positions that typically pay about $4 an hour.

The reform-school ambience is essential, Carrasco believes, because nearly all the trainees are dropouts (average age: 17) and have been in scrapes with the law or have had trouble at home. But all sign up voluntarily, usually after repeatedly failing to get a job. They endure the regimen partly because of parental pressure, which Carrasco helps to generate by visiting his students' families at home. "We involve the parents at every turn," he explains. "We correct the notion that their children are 'our' responsibility. Hell, no. We have to work together."

Carrasco gives his charges plenty of incentives, including cash bonuses of $25 to the Corps Member of the Month and $15 for outstanding arts-and-crafts work. He encourages esprit-building projects: the trainees are refurbishing several old trolley cars to be operated as tourist attractions in El Paso. Alumni success stories serve as sources of inspiration. After being hired as a switchboard operator, a young woman wrote the center saying "This check will make me the first in my family not to be eligible for food stamps."

When nothing else works, the intimidating presence of the 220-lb. Carrasco, a champion boxer in his college days, can make the difference. "He's a top sergeant, shouting 'This is your last chance! Without training, you're going nowhere!' " recalls Alumnus Carlos Porras, now a tobacco salesman who owns a house complete with swimming pool.

Carrasco, who grew up in the El Paso barrio, believes in well-rounded training. "We're teaching values: discipline and dependability. Employers want it. Do you know the worker-absentee rate in America on Monday mornings? It's terrible. Here, you answer the bell or pay for it. And kids leave feeling it was a privilege to be here." Agrees Eleuterio Tena, 32, now a welder in Boston: "They throw you out if you screw up. That's what makes it a beautiful program." Says Sister Bernice Juen, administrator of an El Paso nursing home that has hired 80 of the center's graduates: "They're dependable; they're thoroughly trained. They've had it drilled into them."