Carson City job fair lures up to 500

Carson City’s second official job fair of 2014 attracted nearly 500 Friday, among them a couple of men currently employed but trolling for opportunities.

Dressed well and each wearing ties, Chris Riddell of Reno and Seth Draper of Carson City were on hand to touch base with manufacturing concerns in the search at the job fair at the Carson City Community Center gymnasium, which ran from 1:30 p.m. until 4:30 p.m.

Riddell, who has a speech/communications degree from the University of Nevada, Reno, was thinking of sales or something similar. Draper, also a UNR product, is an engineering graduate putting out earlier feelers.

“The company I’m working with is going to close its doors,” he said, noting it’s still about three months away. He said his background is mechanical engineering, manufacturing and prototyping.

Draper, 34, had just arrived about 3 p.m. at the job fair and one of his first stops was at the table for Carson City’s PlasmaEtch, Inc., which provides industries with clean and related solutions.

The firm’s website says plasma etching technology offers a wide range of solutions to problems faced by manufacturers in the electronics, industrial and medical sectors.

Riddell, 40, had been to the same table earlier and was mulling his next move. He said he was exploring options though he was already employed.

“I smile and dial,” he said, mentioning he’s with a recruiting firm. Asked if he would move to Carson City should he make a connection here, he said he has a home in Reno and so that was unlikely any time soon.

“That’s why they put I-580 in,” he said of the new Reno-capital city connector route. He said he wants it completed so he can get to Zephyr Cove at Lake Tahoe quickly.

Riddell is interested in sales with a manufacturing concern in part because the economic world has changed coming out of the recession.

“It defined a totally new economy that we live in after the recession,” he said.

The job fair attracted 47 employers and 10 employment resource organizations, one of which was Job Opportunities in Nevada (JOIN). Lynda Gotelli, Carson City’s JOIN branch manager, was at her table and said the crop of job seekers included new faces and people who looked serious by their dress and demeanors. She also touted JOIN’s programs, including Northern Nevada career training for the long-term unemployed.

The job fair was sponsored by Carson City’s Health and Human Services (HHS) Department, JOIN and the local Chamber of Commerce, Lynn Ellis, HHS work force case manager, estimated the number of job seekers at close to 500 after checking sign-up sheets at the door more than an hour before the event ended.