Walmart group tours Minter museum

A contingent from Walmart got a tour of the Minter Field Air Museum last week, continuing their education on the area prior to joining the new distribution center opening here later this year.

On Jan. 15, the group met Ronald PIerce at the museum and was led on an informational tour that lasted about 90 minutes. According to Pierce, the group consisted of 15 Walmart employees from throughout the state of California who will be relocating to Shafter when the Walmart Distribution Center opens in the Wonderful .

Randel Cola, operations manager for Walmart, said that the group had visited the Kern County Museum and was interested in visiting the museums here in Shafter. "We wanted to see what Shafter has to offer, and we really enjoyed ourselves. We also visited the Shafter Depot Museum and are planning on touring the Green Hotel."

"We are actively seeking to understand the history of Shafter and what has shaped it to be the city it is now. We have enjoyed visiting the historic sites and look forward being an active partner in the community and contributing to its future success."

Pierce said that the group had plenty of questions and seemed impressed with the facility. "We gave them a full tour, and even started up one of the vehicles for them. It was a very enjoyable experience."

The distribution center is scheduled to open this fall and will be one of the most technologically advanced facilities of its kind, with a large part of the facility using automation. It will create approximately 200 jobs, a portion of which will be STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) related.

Pierce said that this was a good welcome for the visitors and showed them some of the rich history that Shafter has to offer.