TRAINING & EDUCATION


Golf course superintendent Bryan Bergner on GCSAA TV discussing how he created and maintains a honey bee habitat on the course


rough.” By this time, it was the end of February, so I was not only discouraged by the lack of progress, but also anxious because I had to finalise my crew. Just as I was about to give up, I connected with the Operation Dream organisation in Milwaukee. Operation Dream is a non-profit organisation that serves young males ages four to seventeen whose environments put them at particular risk, and for whom similar organisations are out of reach because of poverty and a lack of access to transportation. Like other mentoring organisations, Operation Dream provides programming designed to build academic, social and leadership skills. Unique to Operation Dream, though, is an initiative called Operation Work, which is a hands-on, incentive-based programme for young men ages eleven to seventeen, in which they learn the basics of work, employment and self-sufficiency. The fact is, many of these young men have never known a man who


I found it particularly


refreshing that the boys did not arrive with a sense of entitlement, which is something I have


”


encountered so often over the years with high school and college students


142 PC June/July 2019


During Westmoor Country Club’s annual golf outing for members of Operation Dream, attendees take a break from learning the basics of a golf swing to play with Billie, superintendent Bryan Bergner’s Brittany spaniel


works, so the programme helps them develop the “soft skills” so many of us learned simply by growing up around good male role models. High school students in Operation Work are then encouraged to go out and find employment. This, of course, is where the Operation Work programme dovetailed perfectly with my Diamonds in the Rough internship.


The Operation Dream staff prepared the candidates well for their first job interviews. They came ready to impress, with positive attitudes and well-thought-out questions. From those interviews, we hired two young men from the Operation Work programme to join our summer crew - Antwan and Demetrius Powell. The boys started out with little knowledge of the game of golf, let alone what goes into maintaining a high- quality golf course. Although Westmoor CC is only fourteen miles west of downtown Milwaukee, from the perspective of these kids, it may as well have been a different planet.


Part of the team


Antwan and Demetrius came eager to learn. They learned how to mow greens and fairways and how to rake bunkers. We also worked on interpersonal skills, such as the importance of a firm handshake and looking people in the eye when talking to them. The boys quickly became integral members of our crew, and that allowed them to develop a sense of importance and responsibility they hadn’t been familiar with.


As the summer progressed, I watched as Antwan and Demetrius grew into confident young men capable of holding their own with the more experienced crew members. I found it particularly refreshing that the boys did not arrive with a sense of entitlement, which is something I have encountered so often over the years with high school and college students. Overall, the internship was an overwhelming success for the boys and for our crew. Toward the end of the summer, as a way


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