TOCCOA – October 05, 2026 -- Connor Wallace, a senior at Stephens County High School working at ASI Southeast, has been named Georgia's 2026 Work-Based Learning Student of the Year, an award he received September 24 at the Governor's Workforce Summit in Atlanta from Governor Brian Kemp. The recognition caps a nine-year partnership between the commercial manufacturer and Stephens County Schools that now supplies roughly 10 percent of ASI's Georgia workforce.
Georgia's work-based learning pipeline enrolled 32,518 students across 24,582 employers in the latest school year
ASI Southeast, which makes commercial toilet partitions and lockers for ASI Global Partitions and ASI Storage at its Toccoa plant roughly 90 miles northeast of Atlanta, built its own program as a direct response to a tight skilled-labor market in northeast Georgia.
Wallace has logged 2,534 Work-Based Learning hours with zero absences since joining at age 16
He started at the plant in December 2024 and has recorded zero absences, zero tardies and zero early departures, earning the company's 2025 Perfect Attendance Award. As of August 19, his accumulated hours put him on pace to surpass ASI's internal program record of 3,100 hours before graduation.
A process redesign by Wallace cut 158,720 employee steps and saved an estimated $5,000 annually
During the Locker Business Unit's continuous improvement competition, Wallace reengineered the UPS staging process, removing close to 80 miles of walking per year and winning the unit's "Most Steps Saved" award. He was then one of five employees chosen to represent the unit in ASI's 2026 company-wide continuous improvement championship, where the team's project generated approximately $35,000 in annual savings and took the top prize; Wallace was named Best Presenter.
The program has hired 67 students from three high schools since launching with four
Designed by Stephen Wallace, General Manager of ASI Southeast and Connor's father, the initiative places students at the plant during the school year with a defined path to full-time hiring after graduation. Graduated participants have logged more than 57,736 work hours and earned over $1 million in wages, with roughly 80 percent staying on at ASI after graduation and about half remaining three years or longer. Only one participant has been involuntarily terminated in nine years.
Nearly a third of the operations workforce at ASI Southeast's 900 Plant came through the program
Company figures put that figure at 32 percent for the Toccoa plant's operations staff, with Work-Based Learning graduates now accounting for about 10 percent of ASI's total Georgia employee base. Wallace currently serves as ASI's Work-Based Learning Team Captain, coordinating between the company, participating students and Stephens County High School, leading plant tours and representing ASI at job fairs.