Ten Students Graduate from Cody Chamber’s Work-Ready Boot Camp

The first class of ten students (ages 14-18) from the Work-Ready Boot Camp, designed and run by the Cody Country Chamber of Commerce, graduated last night  (5/18/22) with a small ceremony to commemorate the achievement.

Cake to celebrate Work-Ready Boot Camp graduation.

Tina Hoebelheinrich, Executive Director of the Chamber of Commerce, helped spearhead the effort to study labor and workforce issues related to Cody and summer tourism.

Hoebelheinrich says, “Because workforce is such a big issue for us here in Cody, I applied for a U.S. Chamber of Commerce Fellowship.” The committee Hoebelheinrich served on with other Chamber Directors studied labor shortages for months, but definitive action still needed to be taken.

“We had been studying the workforce issue for ten months…I said to my peers, we have to do something,” Hoebelheinrich says.

The Cody Chamber Board approved Hoebelheinrich’s “Work-Ready Boot Camp” program, which, so far, has been an enormous success. Other Chambers in Wyoming and even other states (as far away as Florida) have reached out and asked to use Cody’s Boot Camp program. According to Hoebelheinrich, the students have spent six weeks “learning soft skills.”

“I can tell you that every Chamber around the state is chomping at the bit to get their hands on what we’ve developed,” Hoebelheinrich says.

“You know we’re raising our kids with devices in their hands, so, what we heard from employers was when they hired young people, they don’t know how to look somebody in the eye and say, ‘welcome,'” Hoebelheinrich says.

The Work-Ready Boot Camp covers critical thinking skills, workplace ethics, workplace etiquette, stress management, time management and more. The programs covers things “kids are terrified they don’t know on their first day,” Hoebelheinrich  adds.

Graduates were awarded Work-Ready certificates last night for completing the course.