GREENE – The Raymond Corporation honored two seniors, Brandon Kenyon and Andrew Norton, for their participation in the Youth Apprenticeship Program at a ceremony Wednesday night.

The Youth Apprenticeship Program is provided through Broome-Tioga BOCES and gives students an opportunity to “see school learning and employment while working in their occupational field of interest.”

Since 1991, Raymond has accepted 56 students into the program, in which they give on-the-job training and ask participants to provide a unique solution to a problem or question while in the workplace.

“They’ve been absolutely awesome partners,” said Sandy Watkins, program development specialist at BOCES. “They do an outstanding job in mentoring and shepherding the students with support and guidance.”

Each year, BOCES receives dozens of applications for the program, which it then passes on to Raymond to review.

Teal Gaylord, work coordinator at Raymond, explained that a panel of four professional employees review the applications and choose students they feel would best fit into the Raymond workplace. The students then go before the panel for an interview.

“We want to give them a real-world experience ... it’s the same standards and expectations of a real job,” said Gaylord. “For every apprentice, it’s new and overwhelming, but they quickly get adjusted and rarely do they not make it.”

Each of the students goes through rotations in which they work with different mentors in different departments such as human resources, marketing and communications, or the print department.