Jessica “Jessie” Lee, a Senior in the Leominster CTEi Graphic Arts department, recently started participating in a cooperative education, or “co-op”, at Ricky’s Towing and Recovery in their Graphic Communications Department. 

Yes Ricky’s Towing and Recovery does have a graphics communications department, it is slightly unusual. 

Jessie has been a student of the highly competitive graphics department in CTEi since Sophomore year. This is her first year out on co-op. 

While in her shop she has learned all sorts of skills such as how to use programs like Adobe and InDesign CS3 as well as the production process of creating products such as shirts and water bottles. 

She has found the tasks she completes at this job are very similar to what she used to do in her shop, creating designs for local businesses and the organizations within the school. 

She recently was working on creating products such as short sleeve shirts for local fire departments in support of breast cancer awareness month and sweatshirts for local businesses such as Aroma Joe’s. 

While she is at Ricky’s Jessie prints out the logo on vinyl, picks off the excess product, heat transfers it to the products, then folds up products to get them ready to be shipped out or picked up. 

Jessie has really enjoyed her co-op so far stating “I think my time in a female dominated work environment has been very productive and I feel like I’m getting a good glimpse of what this could be like as a real full time job.”

Her shop teacher Joseph Brideau is happy with her work. 

“She just recently went out on co-op. Kids that go on co-op have to prove themselves to be responsible, and she definitely pulled up to the plate, changed quite a bit, and is doing very well,”’ said Brideau.  

Jessie also feels lucky that it does not interrupt her academic or personal schedules in any way. She is still able to take an Advanced Placement class every school day and all her other classes during her academic week. 

Her managers are also extremely flexible with her hours, manipulating her schedule so that she is able to work at her other job at Dunkin Donuts and complete all her school work.

Speaking of her managers, one of them is a graduate of Leominster High School and the Graphics Department in CTEi. Elizabeth Leger graduated from the Class of 2019 and had her co-op at Ricky’s Towing and Recovery.