“As a student at Los Angeles High School, Gerson Calderon had no idea what field to go into.
He was a hard worker who did pretty well in school. Always willing to challenge himself, he took three math classes one summer: trigonometry (he got an A), math analysis (he got an A), and calculus (he got a B). Though he enjoyed math, he wasn’t sure if he would go to college.
After he finished school, Calderon applied to Cal State Los Angeles, San Jose State University and many other schools and he got accepted— but money was too tight at home. Afraid of going into debt, Calderon shied away from taking student loans.
Calderon took a minimum wage job at a liquor store after finishing high school. In the summers, he worked at a fish company in Alaska. The pay seemed good at the time, but after a while he got fed up, and decided to go back to school.
He enrolled at Los Angeles Trade Tech
With a little help from his parents and some fee waivers, he decided to attend Los Angeles Trade Technical school, a community college located near
downtown.
Calderon’s advice to youth: “Don’t ever get comfortable working at a liquor store. Move out of there and stay in college.”
After studying for two years, Calderon received a bachelor of science degree and became a machinist. He was motivated by his father, who had worked in a machine shop.
Now at 23, he said he’s happy to be working at the Heinz Canning Company in San Pedro, where he makes anything from bolts to screws. He makes these parts to extremely exact measurements. They must be perfect and cannot even have a scratch on them. If they do they are considered trash.
Besides manufacturing parts, Calderon is also in charge of the consistent maintenance of the machine shop. This is an enormous responsibility since the company has downsized their department, and has a limited staff of two. Between the two of them, Calderon said, they make as many parts as a whole crew of people, especially with the help of a computer.
The company offers good benefits: two weeks of paid vacation and full insurance coverage for himself and his family (he has a wife and two kids.) Calderon earns around $50,000 a year, pretty good considering he has only been working there for two years. Calderon, who lives in Bell Gardens with his family and his parents, is looking for his own house in Los Alamitos or Cerritos.
Calderon works a pretty crazy schedule. He starts work at 5:30 in the morning and goes to 4 in the afternoon on Mondays to Friday, and Saturdays he works from 5:30 in the morning to 2 in the afternoon. Sundays he has the day off. In his free time he likes going out and dancing at clubs. He said his schedule does not interfere with his time at home—he still has time to see his wife and kids.
Calderon said he would recommend going into the field of machinist. The field offers job security because so many companies have machine shops or need to have parts machined. “