Gateway KCC JobSight Puts Former Miner Gene Keeton Back in the Driver’s Seat of His Career

For Morgan Countian Gene Keeton, the Eastern Kentucky coal mines were a familiar place.

“I had about 23 years in the coal industry,” Keeton says, voice crackling over his Bluetooth headset.

After more than two decades of nearly constant work, Keeton was hit with a layoff in February 2020.

“I drew unemployment for about two and a half months and then I ended up getting a job on a road construction crew,” he explains, simultaneously fielding calls on his CB radio during a socially distanced phone interview. “We got laid off from there after about four months when the road got finished.”

This pattern of uncertainty in his livelihood had gone on long enough, he adds, and it was time to take bigger steps to get to a more stable place. One call to Gateway Kentucky Career Center set all of that in motion for Keeton.

A partner in the Kentucky Career Center JobSight network of workforce centers, Gateway Kentucky Career Center JobSight provides Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) services in Morgan and Menifee counties under contract with the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, Inc. (EKCEP). Those services include programs for adults, dislocated workers, and for in-school and out-of-school youth who may need assistance honing skills such as résumé building or networking with local employers, or who need assistance being retrained or going to school.

As a laid-off coal worker, Keeton qualified for assistance through the Hiring Our Miners Everyday (HOME) initiative, which helps former coal industry workers and their spouses get back into the job market with retraining and job placements.

Keeton says he knew that he wanted to get his commercial driver’s license (CDL) from the start. His expert career advisor at Gateway was able to quickly get him signed up for a CDL class in Mount Sterling.

“I was tickled,” Keeton says, adding that he was enrolled in the July 2020 CDL class at the Maysville Community and Technical College. “I was glad they could get me into the school. I kind of wanted to get closer to the house, but I told her I’d take Mount Sterling if that’s the only place they could get me in because I wasn’t about to back out.”

With his experience driving 10-wheeler trucks while working in the mines, he explains that he was already pretty well versed in the ins and outs of CDL driving, he just hadn’t been formally instructed.

“The two instructors that were working there, they were excellent teachers. They showed me a lot of stuff that I kind of knew but didn’t really know,” he explains.

Not only were his instructors helpful, but Gateway was able to pay for his full tuition and continued to offer assistance to Keeton throughout his class, including helping him build his résumé so he would be ready to tackle the job market once he got his CDL.

“They actually even printed me off a bunch of them to where when I go put in applications somewhere, I’d fill out the application then I’d put one of those résumés with the application to show all the stuff I’ve done and everything,” he adds.

Keeton passed his licensing test at the end of November 2020 and took just a few weeks before starting his first CDL job as a dump truck deliverer for Logan Industries.

“To be honest with you, I like this job a whole lot better than the coal mines,” Keeton admits. “I’m in a good warm truck in the winter and an air-conditioned truck in the summer. I’m not wading in the mud or out in the weather, and my knees don’t bother me as bad doing this as they did working in the mines where I was constantly climbing.”

“Unless they run me off, I plan on staying here,” he adds with a laugh.

For anyone questioning whether they should get help with their career path, Keeton says not to hesitate to give Gateway or their local Kentucky Career Center a call.

“I’d recommend anyone who wanted help finding a job to go on and go to Gateway,” he says. 

To learn more about the career and employment services at your local Kentucky Career Center JobSight, visit jobsight.org.   

EKCEP, a nonprofit workforce development agency headquartered in Hazard, Ky., serves the citizens of 23 Appalachian coalfield counties. The agency provides an array of workforce development services and operates the Kentucky Career Center JobSight network of workforce centers, which provide access to more than a dozen state and federal programs that offer employment and training assistance for jobseekers and employers all under one roof. Learn more about us at http://www.ekcep.org, http://www.jobsight.org and http://www.facebook.com/ekcep.