The Peninsula Job Center Career Fair, held on Wednesday at Kenai’s Old Carrs Mall, gave job-seekers a chance to connect with potential employers. Fifty-six businesses and organizations set up table displays, representing industries including construction, oil and gas, seafood processing, health services, retail, and the military.

Rachel O’Brien, a Job Center supervisor, said that the yearly fair is her organization’s biggest event.

“Everybody at the Job Center works year-long to prepare for this event,” O’Brien said.

Job Center business connection specialist Jackie Garcia, who lead this year’s fair, estimated that 150 jobs were being offered by the groups present.

“Probably 75 percent (of the employers) have been a consistent group that has come here for a good six years,” Garcia said. “Twenty-five percent are here for the first time.”

First-time attendees included Tesoro, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, the Porterhouse Grill, and Wipro Technologies.

A total of 670 people attended the fair, including 119 eleventh and twelfth grade students from local high schools, whom O’Brien said have made the fair a field trip for the past three years.

“Each year there have been more and more students coming to this event seeking out summer seasonal or part-time work,” O’Brien said. “Prior to us starting (the field trip arrangement) they weren’t able to come over here as part of their school day.”

Job-seeker Leona Demont said she was pleased with the prospects that the fair provided.

“All this information here is so awesome,” Demont said. “This is someplace I could spend all day.”

Demont, who had previously worked in human services, said she was looking for a part-time job that was “people-based.”

“Just helping others improve their lives anyway they can,” she said, of the job she wanted.

Demont said she was unaware of the fair until discovering it while visiting the Job Center that morning.

Tyler Taplin said he had come to the job fair “just to check things out.”

“I’m looking to get into heavy equipment operations or working for the city of Kenai,” Taplin said. “Just to get a little bit of experience under my belt.”

At the time of the interview, Taplin had given out three of the personal resumes he had brought to the fair.

“I’ll just see where it goes from here,” he said.

Reach Ben Boettger at ben.boettger@peninsulaclarion.com.