Taste of Oak Cliff – The Distribution Training Center

Marty here with Warehouse and Operations as a Career and we’re in Oak Cliff, Texas today at the Taste of Oak Cliff Festival.  If you will please bear with us as it’s Cold, Windy and very noisy outside here, remember we’re no audio gurus but I promise we’ll be talking a lot about Operations and doing our best here as we’re walking around talking to the crowd!  The Distribution Training Center invited us out and I’ve got to admit we’re having a blast talking Safety, Equipment Operation and Health and Wellness in the workplace with all the visitors that’s stopping by the booth!  The Distribution Training Center has several different training programs for the general public and Distribution Companies and their employees.  They offer classes on Order Selecting, Loading and unloading, Driver Helpers and Sanitation and Safety positions.

What an interesting venture the DTC has put together, I can’t wait until we get to go over and visit the facility.  They’ve taken a 50,000ft warehouse and equipped it in the form of a large distribution warehouse, well I guess that’s just building one as they also have a production facility just down the street where they’ll be teaching Food Preparation, kitting, packaging, packing and shipping.  What an innovative idea, I’m always talking about how there’s no shortcut to those higher paying positions, and how experience is the our best teacher but with the DTC teaching us equipment operation, providing equipment certifications, how to unload and load trailers and offering us hands on order selecting techniques we could have that fundamental experience needed to walk in the door and apply for just those positions!

Here’s one of their brochures that talk about the classes offered, let’s see, I have two different brochures:

The Warehouse training curriculums are on:

Electric Pallet Jack

Counterbalance forklift

Reach Lift

Driver Helper

Receiving

Order Selection

And Sanitation Programs

Along with OSHA 10 hr and Osha 30 hr classes.

Then the Food Service Curriculums include:

Food Packaging

Food Storage

Knife Safety

Sanitizing

Shipping

Haccp

And Food Handler Permits!

We’ve gotten to interact with a lot of young people today, I’ve been playing past episodes of the WAOC Podcast and answering questions about how to break into the Operations industry.  It’s been a blast talking about all the Career Opportunities available, you all know how much I like explaining operations and seeing young men and women eager to learn something about our industry.

You know Operations has so many positions available to us not only to make a living with but to grow both Professionally and personally.  Seriously what other industry offers so many earn as you learn opportunities?  As we’ve discussed on several occasions, we can enter this field, apply ourselves, learn everything, every task around us, let our management team know that we’re looking for growth and we can retire from a Career we love.

If your thinking of changing fields or entering the workforce for the first time, make your plan, research a little on the company your interested in and get started.  Even if you have to take a position at a lower pay rate, get started and get some experience. Put your plan in place and get started on a great career!

I hope you enjoyed the venue out here today, and more importantly picked up a pointer or two!  Be sure to shoot us an email to [email protected] if you have any questions about anything mentioned here today and I’ll see that we dig you up an answer!   Please don’t forget to check out our Facebook and Twitter feeds using the @whseandops, we’ll be doing some follow up there as well.  Thanks for listening in today and I myself am going to find a place to get warm with a beverage!  Until next week, please practice your Safety procedures at the workplace and remember to keep our homes safe also!!