On Tuesday, as a part of the Columbia County Chamber of Commerce’s Teachers in Business program, 40 Columbia County middle school teachers visited local businesses to gain insight into future career opportunities available to their students.  The program not only benefits the teachers involved but, in turn, allows the businesses to educate teachers on what is needed most from students entering the future workforce. 

Stallings Island Middle School teachers visited ADP.  The program began with a tour of the facility.  Kim Grant, a volunteer attendee with the Columbia County Chamber, was very pleased with the program and said “ADP did a great job with our teachers.” 

According to Jordan Pierce with State Bank & Trust Company, Doctors Hospital of Augusta had “quite a presentation lined up for us, and I think our contingent of teachers had an illuminating experience.”  Doctors Hospital hosted teachers from Riverside Middle School. 

Out of the eight business involved in yesterday’s program, Rural Sourcing Inc. seemed most eager to continue the program’s effectiveness.  By the end of the day, Doug Haines with RSI was even open to bringing a group of his employees (colleagues) to Evans Middle School to help the kids work through some of their own programing projects.  Doug mentioned that some of his brightest analysts and developers come from Aiken Technical College.  They traded information for both Augusta Tech and Aiken Tech Computer Science teachers with hopes of advancing their own skills taught in the middle school.