Hawthorne Math & Science Academy High School students learn about global trade during a hands-on experience hosted by Pelican Products and Santa Barbara City College’s Scheinfeld Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. Courtesy photo.
SANTA BARBARA — On November 10, Santa Barbara City College’s Scheinfeld Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, along with its business partner, Pelican Products, hosted 22 Hawthorne Math & Science Academy High School students and staff, for a Global T Immersion Micro-Internship. In just three hours, this private event provided students a hands-on experience in Global Trade.
Pelican Products CEO, Lyndon Faulkner, started the day by providing students an overview of the company from its humble beginnings in a garage in Torrance, Calif., to where it is today—a forward thinking, multinational company. Step-by-step, Faulkner guided the students through their protective case solutions and advanced portable lighting systems, describing how these products evolved and their uses throughout the world today. He also detailed how the company made their way into international markets, which laid the foundation for the hands-on experience of solving a real-life business challenge that Pelican faces when entering international markets.
After the company overview, the students toured the 200,000 square foot facility to observe how the products are manufactured and assembled. After returning from the tour, a global marketing challenge was presented to the group for a problem-solving competition. The students split into two groups and their teachers helped them apply what they learned about Pelican Products and their knowledge of Global Trade and Logistics gained from the T-Shirt that Travels the World module that they recently completed in the classroom. Both groups came up with viable solutions, so choosing the winning team was difficult. All students walked away with a wealth of knowledge and a Pelican mini-flashlight, so technically everybody won.
The event wrapped up with key members of the Pelican Products human resource department sharing about global trade and logistics careers within the company. The vice president of Worldwide Human Resources, Ellenmary Michel, and Talent Recruiter, Rosalyn Collier, coached the students on preparing for their entry into the workforce, attaining experience through volunteering and internships, and creating a personal brand through social media. Pelican Products brought in guest speakers from the South Bay Workforce Investment Board, Gaby Goetz and Yesenia Tercero, to share the resources they have to support high school students in their career development. The students left full of energy, information and resources from delightfully engaging micro-internship experience.
Pelican Products reigns as the global leader in the design and manufacture of both high-performance protective case solutions and advanced portable lighting systems and is celebrating their 40th year of creating the toughest and most dependable products on the market. Their products are depended on by professionals in the most demanding markets including fire safety, law enforcement, life sciences, defense/military, aerospace, entertainment, industrial and consumer. Pelican products are designed and built to last a lifetime. For more information on Pelican Products, visit their website www.pelican.com
For more information about The T-Shirt that Travels the World module and Global T Immersion micro-internships, contact Julie Samson, Center for International Trade director, jasamson@sbcc.edu.
This event is hosted by the Scheinfeld Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in partnership with the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) and the Center for International Trade Development (CITD) under the Strong Workforce Program and the Doing What Matters for Jobs and the Economy framework of the California State Chancellor’s Office. For more information please visit: http://scheinfeld.sbcc.edu
About Santa Barbara City College: Founded in 1909, Santa Barbara City College currently serves approximately 25,000 students each semester who enroll in courses for transfer preparation, career education, and foundational skills and an additional 4,500 enroll in lifelong learning classes. SBCC was the 2013-2015 national co-winner of the prestigious Aspen Institute Prize for Community College Excellence. The college was recognized for its quality and focus in four areas: facilitating underrepresented and minority student success, student learning outcomes, degree completion and transfer rates, and labor market success in securing good jobs after college.
Our Mission: As a public community college dedicated to the success of each student. Santa Barbara City College provides students a diverse learning environment that inspires curiosity and discovery, promotes global responsibility and fosters opportunity for all.
About The Global T Program: Our goal is to connect educators and businesses to prepare students for careers in California’s global trade & logistics industry. We do this with our T-shirt that Travels the World module that local high school teachers integrate into their curriculum. The T-Shirt module traces the life of a T-shirt through the global economy. The program includes a Global T Immersion micro-internship at a business that engages in global trade. We send students to places like Patagonia, Deckers, and the Port of Los Angeles for a facilities tour followed by a session where they apply what they learned during the T-Shirt module to a global trade problem that the host company faces. They get to see firsthand how what they’ve learned applies to real life businesses, meet and work with professionals in the field, and discuss educational and career opportunities in the global trade and logistics industry. As these students advance to college we then encourage them to take advantage of education and internship options that are available to them in the global trade and logistics industry.