BY SUE WATSON
Contributing Writer, Delta Business Journal

"We have found a wealth of capable interested individuals in the Delta that have been waiting all their lives for the opportunity to express themselves and to move up," said Grand Casino vice president of human resources Bill Baker. Just over a year ago, Baker was instrumental in convincing his employer to seek out the unemployed in the Delta and train them for casino jobs.

In July 1997 Baker, Job Service worker Al Jones, and Coahoma County Junior College's work-force specialist Betty Lynn Hunt along with others decided to do something about the Delta's unemployed. Hunt said Baker was talking on the phone with Jones about making an impact on the community when Baker suggested: "Why don't we do an adopt a town." Baker already had experience in a similar program in Biloxi, he said.

ÒBaker said the people here didn't know how to dream," Hunt said. Later she was invited to a monthly Human Resources meeting of all casinos. At the meeting Hunt said she heard someone say "People come in and they don't even think about, well, I could be supervisor."

By September 15, 1997 Baker and Hunt and others had convinced Marks Mayor Dwight Barfield and Jonestown Mayor Joe Phillips that something could be done about the unemployed in their communities and help some people go to work that had never been employed.

Since then Grand's Adopt-A-Town program has successfully screened, trained and hired over 300 residents in two Delta communities that probably have never had the opportunity to know what a paycheck means.

The program is still evolving, but Hunt tells the story of how the two mayors and Grand's employment manager Bob Clarkson got the ball rolling and are keeping it moving.

Grand leaves employment applications in the two mayor's offices for them to distribute to individuals who are interested in a job with Grand. Clarkson reviews the applications weekly and decides who he thinks is capable of coming to pre-employment training classes. Each week Clarkson faxes a list of names of those he wants to interview to Hunt who sends out post cards or calls the mayor's offices to have messages delivered to the applicants that they have been selected for an employment interview.

Each week Clarkson goes to Marks and Jonestown and interviews applicants and chooses who he wants to invite to pre-employment training classes. Hunt sets up the weekly classes, which can range from 7 to 17 applicants, then CCJC's Jackie Sanders and Charles Langford, now retired, kick off a new 20- hour training session with recruits. Each new group of trainees meet Monday through Friday for one week.

Hunt said the class emphasizes work ethics, because most to the applicants have never worked and none of them usually have a high school diploma or GED certificate. The instruction emphasizes getting along with others, goal setting, hygiene and dress codes, she said. "If you are tardy or late for a class or absent you're out of that class," Hunt said. Clarkson hires at the end of Friday's training session.

Workers are expected to find their own transportation after six months, according to Baker, but new hires may opt to ride Grand's 47-passenger bus that stops in communities along the way through Marks and Jonestown twice a day to pick up passengers for work or drop them off.

"It's worked great in terms of getting people employed," said Clarkson of the program. "I do all the recruiting and everybody down there from Falcon all the way up knows me. Interviewing, for someone who has never worked, is frightening at best."

Clarkson said what he attempts to do is put vim and vigor back in their lives, but added that he does not misrepresent or understate the effort that new hires will be required to make to get to work every day. "At some point people are going to stand up for themselves," he said. As for other employers interest in the program, Clarkson said: "Other companies are probably not going to do it, but that"s them and this is us. We'll keep on plugging at it. I don't foresee us closing this program out."

For Baker, a 30 plus year veteran in Human Resources, he's not thinking of stepping back either. It's the dream of a great way to finish a career.