C-TRAN Planting Seeds Through Youth Internships, Partnerships

When C-TRAN in Vancouver, WA, recently hosted a group of eighth graders for a career-focused event at its operations and maintenance facilities, the agency knew it wouldn’t see their resumes show up any time soon.

Instead, C-TRAN knew it was planting seeds.

“We’re seeing a big gap between the skills and requirements of what we’re needing,” said Jenapher Dues, C-TRAN’s director of human resources. “If we can somehow influence youth to go into trades, then hopefully, eventually, we’ll have a stronger workforce and job applicants.”

C-TRAN has significantly expanded its efforts in recent years to connect with youth programs and internships. Its primary goal is to provide valuable opportunities to young people in transit, while also benefiting the larger industry, one program at a time.

Newer partnerships for C-TRAN include the COMTO CITY Internship Program, which created a wide-ranging experience for an intern across several departments in 2024. C-TRAN has worked with the Washington State School for the Blind, also located in Vancouver, plus local colleges Washington State University Vancouver and Clark College. The agency also has a longstanding partnership with the diesel program at Cascadia Technical Academy, a local workforce development school.

All told, C-TRAN’s various internship offerings have now spanned more than a decade. Many people initially assume that working in transit means driving a bus. When young professionals realize how much more the industry has to offer, it sparks an interest they didn’t know was there, Dues says. “It’s been really rewarding. Transit is one of those underappreciated career paths.”

In April, C-TRAN organized its own career expo for a group of eighth graders in collaboration with a local youth program called Vancouver Elite Outreach. This visit was hands-on: In the C-TRAN Maintenance shop, students got to try their hand at using spray guns in the agency’s paint booth. They toured the entire maintenance facility and its various functions. Later, they heard from C-TRAN employees in other departments including information technology, human resources, planning, customer experience, and communications and marketing.

“Kids from low-income neighborhoods need more than just resources—they need exposure,” says Matt Young, founder of Vancouver Elite Outreach.

At one point, speakers were asked to describe their own career paths. Some spent decades in transit. Some found their way to the industry later, as a second or third career. Some went to college right away. Some didn’t.

The stories underscored that every career in transit looks different. For at least some of the students in the room, the stories aligned with their own interests.

“When they see what’s possible beyond their blocks, they begin to dream bigger, think differently, and realize they can rewrite their futures,” Young said. “Exposure isn’t a luxury—it’s a lifeline to transformation.”