NORTH TEXAS (CBSNewsTexas.com) – In a world when there seems to be such partisan political debates, there’s one program aimed to help find solutions to problems in a bi-partisan way.
The Presidential Leadership Scholars program is run by the President George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Lyndon B. Johnson presidential centers.
This program brings together people from around the country who are committed to facing critical challenges and learn from former presidents and key officials and they learn from other scholars to see how to solve their issues in their communities.
When Dallas Fire-Rescue Deputy Chief Stephan Lopez was promoted into his role, he found there was a lack of mechanics to work on the trucks to keep them running.
“The fire department cannot respond unless they have something to respond on and our members, our technicians, our mechanics, they take their jobs extremely seriously they are professionals in their own right,” said Stephan Lopez, scholar and Deputy Chief, Dallas Fire-Rescue.
And so during this program he met another scholar, Mary Martha Henson, from Mississippi who works in workforce issues and she helped him find his solution.
“She says ‘Hey, I think I got something that can help you and it just broadens your horizons’ and then as she’s talking I’m just thinking you’re opening up my mind to something I have never considered reaching out to our schools, reaching out to our high schools, our automotive technology programs,” said Lopez.
“And I said you know have you thought about working with your high schools, do high school students understand the opportunities of public service if you come to work with the Dallas Fire department. Sometimes I think we make things so much more complicated than they have to be,” said Mary Martha Henson, a scholar from Mississippi.
Deputy Chief Lopez is currently working with the department’s policies to make that happen with DFR to solve this issue.
“Right now we have 5 DISD schools that we’re targeting that have automotive technology programs so those 5 schools we’re going to go out and we want to build an internship, apprenticeship program that we bring those kids in and we either create jobs or we create those internship opportunities where we pay them 50-percent of salary,” added Lopez.
This year’s group has 60 graduates-and if you want to be a part of this program for next year, click here to learn more.
