MOSES LAKE - When Jeff Schoonover was laid off after his company relocated from Wenatchee to Moses Lake, he struggled to find another job and turned to SkillSource.

Schoonover, now a technology specialist with the Wenatchee School District, was one of several individuals and companies in Central Washington recognized Friday in Moses Lake at the SkillSource awards banquet at Big Bend Community College.

"I've observed there are two kinds of people," Lee Hendrickson said, presiding trainer for SkillSource in Wenatchee. "There are people who have problems, challenges in their lives and will give those as the reasons why they cannot move on with the life they want to have. Then there's another kind of person who has problems or challenges in their life and those are the things they get through and later brag about that they got through. Tonight we have honored businesses and individuals who have found ways to get through problems and challenges and stood up here and bragged about it."

Like Schoonover, who improved his resume and skills with the help of SkillSource and was able to enroll at Wenatchee Community College, Cory Sharp, now a sales engineer at Lad Irrigation in Moses Lake, was laid off and decided he wanted to improve his life. He completed a career planning workshop and training courses that helped him obtain the needed skills to land a new job.

Also among those recognized were Lad Irrigation Sales Manager Doug Muscott; Candis Huston, a registered nurse at Valley Care Center in Wenatchee; Luis Ayala, an inventory control specialist at the Othello Walmart; and Financial Specialist Kathy Tylock and Finance Team Leader Eric Knowles, both at ConAgra Foods-Lamb Weston in Warden.

Speaker Dale Peinecke, commissioner with the state Employment Security Department, commended the commitment of those individuals honored and the dedicated SkillSource employees and members of the Workforce Development Council.