OED creates partnership with schools and companies

Ozaukee Economic Development (OED) is coordinating a new effort among area school districts and local businesses to help students explore career opportunities.

“We thought, ‘How can we start working with school districts and companies on some of these career programs to help make them a little more coordinated, and how can we work with them on other academic and career planning goals?’” Executive Director Kathleen Cady Schilling said.

Cady Schilling said school districts and businesses want to work together, but are having trouble coordinating opportunities because there is no link between the entities. That’s where OED comes in.

“We want to be the middle man for the school districts and businesses so they can easily work together,” Cady Schilling said.

OED’s mission is to make progress in Ozaukee County by collaborating with the community and businesses leaders to ensure a growing and diversified economy in the region. The nonprofit corporation’s new initiative — called the Ozaukee Economic Development School Committee — is made up of representatives of the Port Washington-Saukville, Grafton, Northern Ozaukee, Cedarburg and Mequon-Thiensville school districts. The committee also includes the Ozaukee Youth Apprenticeship program, Cady Schilling said.

On Wednesday, Nov. 20, the committee will host a Career Exploratory Fair for students in eighth through 12th grades from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Milwaukee Area Technical College’s Mequon Campus. The fair will focus on careers involving science, technology, engineering and math. Cady Schilling said her goal is to have about 100 students attend.

“You’re asking students for their time outside of school and sports. We tried to set the fair after fall sports are done and we figured we would stay away from hunting season, which starts the next day,” Cady Schilling said. “We want them to think about their careers and explore options that are important.” 

Cady Schilling said the fair will have industry professionals speaking on career opportunities in biomedical, chemical and mechanical engineering and information technology-related fields such as software development, security systems and network development. She said she expects to have seven to 15 companies at the event.

“I’m in the process of looking for some IT and engineering people. We’re having conversations with our local manufacturers for more mechanical engineering representation,” she said, noting chemical engineering professionals from Pope Scientific in Saukville and Hentzen Coatings of Milwaukee will be at the event.

In spring, the committee will host a more general career fair at Concordia University Wisconsin.

“The goal is to have one industry-specific fair and one generalized fair each year,” Cady Schilling said, adding next year she wants the industry-specific fair to be related to health care.  

The committee was formed about a year ago in an effort to organize career-planning opportunities for students in different districts and draw more diverse businesses to career fairs to enlighten students about various career pathways. Cady Schilling said she is working with local Chambers of Commerce to incorporate more businesses in the program and determine the communities’ employment needs.  

“We were trying to figure out how we could help districts try to find ways to work together and be on the same page,” Cady Schilling said. “We also want to make it a little easier for schools to get businesspeople involved. 

“For years, career fairs have had a lot of the same people talk so other businesses might not know how to interact and become part of these career fairs.”

Cady Schilling said area businesses view schools as a major opportunity to recruit local talent, but there is a barrier to become involved and interact with students.

“What we’re trying to do is see if we can make this easier for businesses to work with the schools because a lot of times they don’t know where to go because they don’t know the school officials,” she said. 

“Sometimes, I think businesses don’t interact with schools they potentially could because they’re afraid or they interact with only one school because their kid goes to that school.” 

Cady Schilling said the committee has agreed to meet five times a year. The priority is for districts to talk about regional employment issues and to work on other joint programs. 

“Long term, we’re hoping the school districts give us information on ways businesses can interact with them so the businesses can have one central location,” she said. “Our county is a little challenging because the districts use different career planning resources and online platforms. The school districts have a variety of reasons why they utilize different platforms, and those programs work for them.”

Cady Schilling said the goal of the program is for students to understand the skills needed to enter a specific career and what day-to-day work is like. 

“This is step one to make sure we all know what’s going on and we’re working together,” she said.