LPS’ AIM program colors career choices

Desirae Kane, 18, s has always been enchanted with color.

“I’ve changed the color of my hair every week since I was in fifth grade,” she said.

And she fell in love with cars at a young age.

“I would be in a princess dress and fake high heels and be under the car with my dad,” she said.

Kane has melded those two interests into what she hopes will be a future career — auto body painting. She credits the Lawton Public Schools’ AIM program with helping her finalize her career choice.

“It was very valuable to me,” she said of the AIM program. “It helped me not only by forming a relationship with Fortney (Clarence Fortney, superintendent of Great Plains Technology Center) but forming what I do want to do.”

The AIM program (Apprenticeship, Internship and Mentorship) is open to 20 LPS sophomores every year who have the opportunity to shadow mentors in their chosen career field.

Kane said she became aware of the AIM program last year through her counselor at Gateway Success Center.

“They would pair me with a mentor in that career field. I was really interested in welding. Fortney was a welder,” Kane said of her mentorship with Fortney.

Because of her interest in welding, she was paired with the Great Plains Technology Center superintendent, who also is a welder. She said after a tour of GPTC, they suited up to do some welding.

“I started coaching her in arc welding,” Fortney said. “She was doing pretty well, she was listening. After a break, I asked her if she wanted to see anything else. She said ‘auto body.’” GPTC had just set up a virtual paint system and she started using that. “Tony (Josey, auto collision instruction) said ‘that’s not bad for a first time.’”

Kane said although she enjoyed welding, she didn’t see herself doing it as a full-time career.

“After coming in here multiple times, the mentorship and having time to weld with Fortney, I couldn’t see myself welding for hours and hours, but seeing what they did here piqued my interest,” she said.

The something that piqued her interest was auto body painting.

So Kane traded her welding helmet for a paint mask and enrolled in the auto body course at Great Plains. After just one year in the program, she competed and won first place at State and the Skills USA competition in Tulsa.

“Typically second-year students go to Skills USA, but Desirae got first place,” Forntey said.

That first-place win earned her the right to compete in Nationals. Although she didn’t win at Nationals, the experience proved invaluable. She said the paint used at State was urethane whereas the paint at Nationals was waterborne, which Kane said is a different process.

She next set her sights on finding a mentor who would help her learn the waterborne process. Her Great Plains instructor introduced her to Matt Gillispie, body shop foreman at Lawton Collision Center and Body Shop.

“I was pretty impressed,” Gillispie said. “The first week she was here, she painted a bumper and I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh.’” He said he has had guys in the body shop who did not want to paint at first.

“Everything she has painted has come out good. She has taught one of the guys who has been here longer how to paint,” Gillispie said.

The internship has proved so successful that Kane started working part time at Lawton Collision Center in July.

“She just jumps right in there and gets after it,” Gillispie said. “She has been a good asset to the company and you can tell she just loves it. I think she really does love the business and the painting side of things. It’s hard to find people who will take that risk for fear of messing it up. She’s not afraid to jump in and do something.”

Kane will continue her education at Great Plains until she finishes the program. Then she plans to take a break from school and concentrate on honing her craft. Ultimately, she would like to return to Great Plains and take some business courses preparatory to opening her own restoration shop.

“That’s what piques my interest the most,” she said. “I want to take cars people find on the side of the road from the ‘30s and ‘40s and restore them to what they once were. The thing with these classic cars is, you are not going to find parts for these cars. That’s where welding will come in handy. I can slice out the parts that are rusty.”

But none of this would have been possible without the AIM program, she said.

“When I was in high school, I was very ‘keep my head down and do my work’. I was kind of stuck in my shell. The AIM program took me out of my shell. It was a real eye opener, and I’m thankful for that,” Kane said.