Edwin Cervantes, 21, of Joliet was one of eight Job Corps students chosen from 124 centers nationwide to attend the annual Home Builders Institute conference in February in Orlando, Fla.
Cervantes, a Joliet Central High School graduate, is a top-performing student, said his teacher, William Osipczuk, and HBI instructor who nominated him.
Cervantes has been certified in ceramic tile setting and is nearly finished in Facilities Maintenance. He has performed many hours of volunteer work while a student at Joliet Job Corps.
He and the other Job Corps students manned a booth explaining how Job Corps works. “It was like a builders’ show,” he explained. “Contractors came to see what’s new on the market.”. One of the new products he liked is a window screen that cannot be cut or breached in any way. “We could take a baseball bat to it to see for ourselves,” he said.