Growing up in Lake Charles, La., Van Lockett never wondered where to go to find a good paying job.
About 30 miles from the Gulf Coast, the city has become a major petrochemical center with job opportunities in the oil and gas fields. His father, an army vet who visited Hawaii while serving, has worked in the field for years, his mother, a retired teacher, later got her Masters and also worked in special education.
“I never had to wonder where I could go to make a buck,” Lockett said last week, “and at the end of high school I just didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I worked.