Wes Watt is the Public Information Officer for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet District 3 Office in Bowling Green. His experiences while working at Community Education helped prepare him for that career.
“Working for Community Education allowed me to develop a wide range of skills,” Watt said. “I got media experience by going on live television on multiple local stations as well as radio interviews and newspaper interviews.”
Watt began working at Community Education in 2002 as a group leader, now called direct services, at L.C. Curry Elementary School. By the time he left in 2013, Watt was the assistant director of school-age programs.
“Dealing with kids and parents from all types of backgrounds in numerous situations allowed me to develop some in-depth people skills,” Watt said.
“Since I worked at multiple levels of Community Education I was able to develop teamwork skills with my co-workers and supervisor skills in various roles.”
Watt said that the everyday challenges of working with large groups of students and staff at multiple sites developed problem-solving skills.
“All of my experiences while working at Community Education have transferred to all aspects of my life, personally and professionally,” Watt said.
Working at Community Education was rewarding, according to Watt.
“I loved helping the kids with their homework,” he said. “The teachers would sometimes share with me that students’ grades would go up because they were able to get their homework finished in the after-school program. I really felt like I had a positive impact.”
Watt said he runs into several people who, as kids, were in Community Education programs and now as adults work for Community Education or similar programs.
“It’s really cool to see kids whom I had in our programs now working in them as adults,” Watt concluded.