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Husted visit; Speaks about expansion of state job resources

By Douglass Huxley 4 min read

Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted made a stop in Marietta Thursday at the Washington County Career Center for the Building Bridges To Careers Business Advisory Council Meeting.

"We can not afford to leave anyone behind," Husted said. "We need all hands on deck. Everybody off the bench, and into the game. And that's what we're trying to do."

Husted said about 75% of the jobs currently available in Ohio are ones that don't need a college degree to obtain. He said there are nearly 175,000 jobs posted to the OhioMeansJobs.com website, Ohio's free, online career counseling center that connects businesses to job seekers, and over 90,000 of them pay over $50,000 a year and most don't require a college level education.

"We are seeing more, and more employers who get the fact they have to be engaged earlier," Husted said. "They're just not going to be able to put a want ad into the paper, and people are going to show up."

Husted said this was why business advisory councils were so important. He said businesses need to engage with educators, and vice versa, to help ensure students are getting access to the right kind of programs and careers. He said for the longest time people have told him more students need to attend a career center of some kind.

"They've listened," Husted said. "We have some career centers in the state that have a waiting list of a thousand students who couldn't get in. Why? Because it's the best value in education."

Husted said the more businesses and educators work together the better the students in the community will benefit.

"So, I'm glad you're doing this," Husted said. "Those who do it best are the ones who win. I say this all the time, those who collaborate best are the ones that win."

The BB2C Business Advisory Council Meeting consisted of business representative in the area who have taken on an intern from BB2C.

They consisted of Warren Local School Superintendent Kyle Newton, Stacy Parks, workforce development specialist at Memorial Health System, owner of Micro Machine Works Linn Yost, Senior Human Resource Manager at Perry & Associates CPA's Janelle Seevers, Vice President and Retail District Manager of Peoples Bank Danielle Bruni and Noble County Prosecutor Jordan Croucher.

All said they treated their internships more like a "field trip or job shadowing" experience.

"The job shadow approach is exactly what we did," Croucher said. "If you're just going to come into the office and file paperwork, and index names, and shuffle files around, that's boring. You're going to learn nothing about the actual day to day of what we do."

Croucher said his office tried to make it the best experience they could for the student and that he enjoyed the process. He said the job shadow approach was the best way to go. He said his office really wanted some buy-in from their side because if a student is putting in the time to learn something, they wanted to make it worth their while.

"If your community doesn't buy in on you, why stick around," Croucher said. "The goal for buy-in now is greater than it's ever been before, and there's never been a better opportunity to have success growing your own."

Husted said students no longer have to leave Ohio to find a good paying job. He said the state is creating jobs faster than they can find people to fill them.

"We've got to help, and we're trying to help," Husted said. "We're investing, if the legislative approves our budget, $300 million for expanding career centers across the state. $200 million for expansion of facilities, and $100 million for the latest machinery and equipment. Whether those are robotics, optical scan, artificial intelligence, whatever it might be, whatever it takes. We're going to make sure we have a top notch career tech system in our state."

Douglass Huxley can be reached at dhuxley@newsandsentinel.com

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