When Francisco and Graciela Hernandez lost their jobs at VF Jeanswear last year, it felt like the end of the world. Today the couple is traveling via tractor-trailer to the ends of the United States, from El Paso to North Dakota, California, New York and Florida.
"And we love it," Graciela Hernandez, 54, said in a cell-phone interview in Spanish from North Dakota. "We're working, but it's like being on permanent vacation. We're traveling everywhere."
 The Hernandezes graduated six months ago from the Truck- Driving school at the Center for Employment Training, or CET, in Socorro and immediately were employed by Swift Trucking Co.
The center helps workers like the Hernandezes who have been displaced by the North American Free Trade Agreement, single mothers, unemployed adults, immigrants, those with limited English proficiency, farm workers, the disabled and the poor. The private, nonprofit organization in Socorro works to provide meaningful training to El Pasoans in high-demand jobs, center officials said.
"Our classes were five-and-a-half months," Francisco Hernandez, 61, said. "They taught us everything, even enough English to get the job done. We're now better off economically than before and we're seeing a lot of the country. I believe there's only four states we haven't visited yet."
In addition to truck driving, the center also holds a class on medical insurance billing and another on shipping and receiving.
The center plans to expand its operation into El Paso in the near future, while retaining its Socorro facility, director Rose Guerrero said. In five years, she said, the center should also be operating in Las Cruces. Guerrero said the center is looking into other jobs that are in demand in El Paso in the medical field and in construction.
"Our truck-driving class is the oldest," Guerrero said. "We have a good record -- 98 percent of our students get hired." The new medical insurance billing program promises to be just as successful.
"I haven't finished the course yet and I already have a job offer in a doctor's office," said Olivia Camacho, 25, a single mom who is the sole supporter of herself and her 4-year-old son, Sebastian. Camacho, a 1997 graduate of San Elizario High School, has been working as a clerk in a warehouse.
David Nava, youth program coordinator, said the center is reimbursed by the government for students who have lost their jobs because of NAFTA. Loans and other financial aid are available from the Department of Education, he said.
The center is financed entirely by tuition fees, which average $6,500 per student. For 2004-2005, the center will operate on a projected $1 million budget, a far cry from the agency's lean years when only $100,000 was received.
Most of the students, through grants and financial aid, pay very little of their own money for the classes, Nava said. This past summer, (CET) received an award from the Department of Labor ' the Recognition of Excellence Award. The award was presented at the Workforce Innovations Conference in San Antonio in July.
"CET was chosen for this award by successfully demonstrating that its unique program of training and support services was effective in recognizing the demographics of the work force," Nava said.
The center has been in operation for nearly 10 years, Guerrero said. It is affiliated with the Center for Employment Training in San Jose, Calif., which is now in its 37th year. The corporate center boasts of having trained and placed more than 100,000 men and women in meaningful jobs and has been acknowledged as one of the most innovative, cost-effective and efficient job-training programs in the nation. The Socorro center has trained and placed more than 1,000 workers in the past nine years, Guerrero said.
Ken Flynn may be reached at kflynn@elpasotimes.com; 546-6138
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