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Press Coverage
1/9/07 The Daily Courier:
YEI employees get all kinds of jobs By JOANNA DODDER
Yavapai Exceptional Industries has various levels of employment opportunities for developmentally disabled people in the Prescott region.
Some of YEI’s 126 employees package YEI’s special salami packs. They build their own picnic tables, survey stakes, lathes, adobe bricks and even cremation boxes, which they enjoy calling “traveling boxes.”
Others work on an assembly line for local businesses such as Sturm Ruger & Co., to assemble gun parts. Sturm Ruger prefers to use YEI space instead of its own, while YEI brings employees to the employers at other sites such as the Candle Factory and Better Bilt, YEI Executive Director Brad Newman said.
Thirty-seven percent of YEI employees work completely outside of YEI buildings and earn prevailing market wages, Newman said. They do everything from wiping tables at Wendy’s restaurant to spraying down heavy equipment at Fann Contracting.
YEI helps get them outside jobs by providing job coaches at no charge who train the employees for as long as it takes, Newman said.
Newman and his supervisors are always on the lookout for more contracts. This past week, some of the employees were re-labeling dented dog food cans so dollar stores could sell them. Others were folding and sorting mail for various companies, or filling boxes with goods.
“You just show me the box Brad, and I’ll break it down for you,” offered Jeremy Hongisto when Newman brought a visitor to his workspace.
Jenny K. Eisele came over to let the visitor know that she also has jobs at Red Lobster and Rummel Eye Care.
Matt Carratura started his day at Sonic and then stopped by YEI to empty the wastebaskets.
All the workers sported smiles as wide as rainbows. They freely offered handshakes and hugs, especially Tina Platzer, because it was her birthday.
“When I need an uplift, I do a walk through,” confirmed Employee Coordinator Ron Aguilera.
Unlike some of the more able-bodied population, his employees don’t mind repetitive work, Newman said.
Some never had jobs until they found YEI, he said.
“These guys love their job,” Newman said. “They’re proud of their jobs. They see themselves as contributing members of society.”
YEI invented its own software to calculate the productivity of each employee by the hour, and pays them based on each hour’s work, Newman said. The federal government oversees YEI and audits it.
As long as it gets some kind of exemption from actually paying the minimum wage, the higher Arizona minimum wage probably won’t affect YEI, Newman said, because it pays employees a percentage of hourly wages that almost always are greater than the minimum wage, he said.
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