Behind fast-track classes, group aims to solve labor shortage

The labor shortage that plagues a variety of fields in the region has met a formidable foe: classes that get workers on the job — quickly.

By Mark Gordon
| 6:00 a.m. March 15, 2019
| 0 Free Articles Remaining!

Lori Sax. Mireya Eavey, with CareerEdge, and Walt Eppard are behind a program to match tradespeople with jobs at companies â€” quickly.

Development

Walt Eppard fell into a technical career in the trades in the late 1950s while in the Air Force. The military said he couldn’t fly because he was colorblind. So he instead worked in aircraft maintenance and later technical writing.

Eppard eventually got into real estate development and ended up in Sarasota. His decades-long career ranges from a variety of shopping plazas to Waterlefe Golf & River Club, off the Manatee River in east Manatee County.