New recruits.

• Author: GRAHAM, SANDY
• Position: Vocational program called Transformations trains women for employment in the high tech industry - Statistical Data Included

even in today's hot employment market, these Colorado women's recent prospects for new jobs appeared limited:

* Carolyn Belarde's arthritis had turned her lifelong work as a cleaning woman into self-inflicted torture.

* Gloria Montoya cared for her invalid mother for years until she died. Gloria's sister, Martha Montoya, lost the clerical job she had held for 17 years. Both needed work.

* Haregewow Hailu emigrated from Ethiopia to Denver.

* Cindy McCarthy got divorced, and couldn't afford the training she needed to use her master's degree.

Each of the five women faced different hurdles to breaking into the state's new-job market. Yet each, thanks to a nontraditional training program called Transformations, is now headed to a career in the hottest business sector of that market: high technology.

Transformations is a free, 20-week-long educational program that helps participants bridge the gap between so-so, minimum-wage jobs and well-paid, high-tech jobs -- in communications, computers, electronics, medical technology and other fields. Only 2 years old, it nevertheless is garnering rave reviews from participants and employers alike.

"I am so excited about this," says Belarde, at 58, the eldest student in the current Transformations session. "I'm using this package that's never been opened -- my brain."

Belarde, one of 15 children, dropped out of high school and went to work as a cleaning woman for some 30 years. Now, she hopes a high-tech career will make use of her blossoming writing skills.

There's no doubt the jobs are there.

Colorado has seen an explosion of high-tech businesses, with the state's tech exports jumping 23 percent in 1999 to $3.6 billion, according to the American Electronics Association.

In 1998, 165,000 residents were employed in high-tech jobs, according to state statistics, and today thousands of jobs go begging.

The 60 Transformations graduates to date have found employment easily, says Mary S. Hillsman, program director. Typically, graduates take technician jobs, such as "help desk" experts, software trouble-shooters, or assembly or quality-control workers in manufacturing. Some go on to additional training in fields like computer programming.

The Transformations curriculum provides basic training in the use and workings of computers and software, fundamental applied physics, direct-current and alternating-current electronics, computer-assisted design, and business concepts, including Total Quality Management. It also...