A lot of the cities we have gone to lately the people who visit the booth are looking solely for jobs, and not as much furthering their education. I can’t blame them, the economy is hard and feeding one's family is a significantly more immediate concern than education, especially when you don’t have a steady, well-paying job. Circumstances like this are hard for us when the Empowerment Tour is promoting increasing one's education. However, often in life, there always seems to be light at the end of the tunnel! On our way out of St. Louis through Chesterfield, the Tour was asked if we wanted to take a “field trip” through, tiny but profitable, 35-year-old, family owned, Willerding Metal Fabrication. The metal fabrication company is a boutique company in a sense. Although, they have big clients like Boeing, their niche is unique metal products like caissons, large pipes that will help New Orleans avoid future Hurricane Katrina-related levy problems. Like most small companies Willerding was hit by the economic hardships of late, but owner of three years, Gary, understood how much his employees value their jobs and, also, how valuable his employees were to him. This “employee valuing” is the reason the Tour was asked to come out. Both Gary and his wife realized some of their employees wanted to go back to school, but are unable to make it a top priority at the moment. Instead, since the daily concern is daily life, they thought the opportunities the Empowerment Tour was offering were important. Since Willerding was on our way to Kansas City and none of us on the Tour had ever been through a metal fabrication plant, it seemed like fate. At the plant, not only did the Tour get a tour, but we told them what we were doing, passed out information to the 50+ employees, gave a tour of our RV and exchanged Empowerment Tour tees for Willderding tees (truly a highlight). It’s responses like we got here that make more challenging areas worthwhile. Thanks Willerding for making us remember why we are on tour.
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