Melaleuca Hosts IT Boot Camp for Local High School Students

Melaleuca hosted 30 tech-savvy high school students from eastern Idaho and northern Utah as part of a week-long computer science boot camp. The free workshop allowed students the opportunity to discuss a data-run world with industry experts and try their hand at practical programming.

Rex Barzee, a professor of computer information technology at BYU-Idaho, taught the course. Under his leadership, attendees created interactive smartphone apps, event scheduling interfaces, and other prototypes.

In his interview with Local Channel 8, Barzee said “We hope to interest local high school students in information technology. Melaleuca and lots of companies in southeast Idaho have a great need for technology workers, and we really would like to have our local people, our local students gain those skills, gain interest in information technology and come and work for the great companies that are in southeast Idaho.”

Based on their previous experience with programming, attendees were split into two classes to work on intermediate and advanced projects throughout the week.

Students also had the opportunity to learn from various Melaleuca IT specialists who discussed the importance of business intelligence and automating the world around us. These guest speakers spoke about real-time collaborative troubleshooting, finding creative solutions in an analytical domain, and what a
future career in the field of information technology will look like for these
students.

This workshop is just one example of Melaleuca’s continuing commitment to education. Since 1985, Melaleuca has incorporated new technological advances, supported research and development, and employed local IT professionals to spur local economic growth. Melaleuca’s own IT professionals build applications that support manufacturing, distribution, customer care, order and payment processing, and inventory management.

Based on annual revenues from the web, today Melaleuca ranks as one the largest e-commerce companies in North America with over $2 billion in annual sales. As such, Melaleuca continues to support students pursuing educations and careers in IT, recognizing that these students will become
tomorrow’s leaders and innovators.

Students who are interested in attending the free IT Boot Camp next year can call Melaleuca at (208) 522-0700 for more information.