RIPLEY, Tenn. — Students in West Tennessee learned about the jobs of the future at a career expo on Wednesday.
For the first time, the expo included information about a once-in-a-lifetime project soon to break ground in Haywood County: Ford's 'Blue Oval City'.
The site 40 miles north of Memphis will need thousands of workers and Ford is already recruiting those in the Memphis region — before they're even eligible for a learner's permit.
That included 8th grader Kyle Arnold. Don't tell him it's too early to follow his dreams.
"Really exciting, we get to look at a lot of different career paths, see what I want to do," Arnold said.
The middle school student stayed engaged at the annual expo in Ripley.
"We have the opportunity to come out here and look at the stuff we are interested in," Arnold added.
The event included Ford Motor Company engineers and their encouragement.
By the time Arnold and his fellow 8th graders graduate high school in 2026, Ford will have opened 'Blue Oval City' in Haywood County, building electric trucks and their batteries.
"A lot of innovation, like, with electric cars coming to us, just getting more technologically advanced," Arnold said.
Blue Oval City is expected to create nearly 6,000 direct jobs and a wide range of new, available careers for West Tennessee.
"Operators, maintenance technicians, engineers, IT, HR, so there's so many opportunities right now," Ford's Global Director for Learning and Development Liliana Ramirez said.
Ramirez said Wednesday's event looked to inspire and inform America's future workforce.
"There's two questions today that they've been asking, do I get a car and is a good-paying job?"
Ramirez said Blue Oval City jobs will be well-paid, even though specific position salaries and benefits are still being finalized.
Her recruitment included student Jasmine Broom.
"Makes them think about maybe wanting to do it when they get older and the kids see how much money they can get and like they can come up with ideas on designing more vehicles," Broom said.
As for Arnold, he left the expo with a new spark and fresh ambitions.
"Designing, designing parts for the cars and working on them, stuff like that," Arnold said.
Blue Oval City is scheduled to break ground for construction sometime this year.
The project will also create thousands of constructions jobs as the project is being built and thousands of other indirect jobs when it's open.
To find out about construction job opportunities, click here.
To find out about general opportunities, click here.