By Sammy Miles, Managing Editor-in-Chief of CORROSION journal

TalentForce, AMPP’s new company, held its inaugural workforce development panel on Tuesday, March 17, at the 2026 AMPP Annual Conference + Expo in Houston.

Panelists included John Prego, Director of Operations at Alpine Painting and Sandblasting Contractors; Jamey McDaris, the Performance and Development Manager at OneMesa; Dawn Cronin, the Chief of Staff in the Labor Office of the Texas Workforce Commission; Juliet Stipeche, the Executive Director of Workforce Solutions Gulf Coast; Hector Yanez, the Director for Workforce Development at Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station; and Kenya Ray, Lead Instructor and Faculty Advisor of Corrosion Technology at Kilgore College.

The discussion highlighted the need to design and update models and programs to be more modern. “Jobs are changing and we need to evolve with them,” said Cronin.

However, while programs, technologies, and jobs change, there will be a career for “people who have skills to fix problems,” according to Stipeche.  

The panelists agreed that we need to ensure that people are not encouraged to enter a “road to nowhere,” or a field that does not have potential careers. Prego emphasized that we need to refocus on the trades and not view them as secondary to college.

Several panelists and attendees commented on needing to reach people younger—when they are in high school—although that comes with its own set up challenges, such as being too young for a commercial driver’s license (CDL). Other groups highlighted were veterans and “second chance” individuals, who may have juvenile records or served time in jail as an adult. While there are programs available to train them for employment, there is not always awareness of those programs.  

Panelists agreed that apprenticeship programs remain important to bring people into the industry. One challenge with apprenticeship programs is that they can take a long time, according to Yanez. Microcredential trainings, offered by Texas A&M, are an opportunity to help people join the workforce as a faster alternative.  

Workforce demand goes beyond the trades, and it extends to engineers and other occupations. To that end, Yanez stated that A&M offers a “Bachelor’s Plus” degree, which provides training for skills such as welding during the summer after obtaining a bachelor's degree. While Texas A&M has different offerings to address student needs, they face a challenge where students are seeking the careers that make the most money, not the ones they are most interested in, which is leading to attrition from programs.

They are working on raising awareness of this issue so that students can balance salary and interest, in order to increase program retention.  

Many attendees offered suggestions, with many sharing a strong desire to help TalentForce and the panelists.