(The following story by Zeke Minaya appeared on The Press-Enterprise website on August 7.)
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — To the layman, the bank of computer monitors might as well be flashing hieroglyphics. Red, green and white lines shoot off in various directions.
Jonathan Watson sees more in the patterns.
Through the various hues and blinking lights he tracks mile-and-a-half-long trains hauling 9,000 tons of freight across Southern California at upward of 60 mph.
“It’s only stressful if you let it be stressful,” Watson said of his job as a dispatcher with BNSF Railway. “You got to run the job, not let the job run you.”
His managers are confident that Watson, 24, can handle the pressure. The Highland resident was among a small group, handpicked from hundreds of applicants, to undergo months of training in a program launched by the railway, the San Bernardino County Workforce Investment Board and San Bernardino Valley College.
BNSF approached the college and county authorities seeking help with local recruitment. With corporate headquarters in Texas, BNSF had trouble keeping dispatchers in California because of the higher cost of living, railway officials said.
The resulting partnership, formed in January, led to a 16-week training course and this summer graduated a seven-member inaugural class.
The program helps fill crucial positions for BNSF, and offers a potentially life-changing opportunity for successful participants, railway officials and graduates said.
Watson said his mother last year showed him a newspaper ad for the program. At the time, he was earning about $18,000 a year as a part-time UPS worker, he said. Watson recalled that the ad said the starting wage for railway dispatchers would be around $70,000.
“It sounded too good to be true,” he said.
The San Bernardino County Workforce Investment Board specializes in bringing people like Watson, who did not attend college, together with good paying jobs, said Executive Director Sandy Harmsen.
“Last year we served 40,000 individuals, assisted them in finding employment, with skills upgrades, helped them with resumes and other services,” she said.
The board contributed about $93,000, which allowed the first group and recently a second, to train at BNSF headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas.
Program organizers received about a thousand initial responses.
Applicants underwent grueling entrance exams and interviews, said Kevin Anderson, director of the Transportation Center at San Bernardino Valley College.