Blog
The Kids Are Alright
By Teasha Cable
Businesses says they want to work with education systems. Educators welcome the opportunity to work with businesses. So why aren't they talking to each other?
Just about every economic developer I’ve spoken with has sat through the same two meetings. An employer says they would love to work with schools, and an educator says they would love to work with business.
Both mean it, yet, nothing happens.
On a recent #DynamicDecisionsPodcast I sat down with Nate Clayberg, CEcD to find out why we keep running this loop, and, more importantly, what actually breaks it.
Call Him the Translator
Nate is a certified economic developer and the business and industry director for the CAPS Network.
CAPS, the Center for Advanced Professional Studies, includes more than 100 programs across the United States where high school students learn through real projects with industry. Nate’s job is to bring employers into that model.
His background includes broadcasting, college athletics administration, and a decade in economic development. He describes himself as "the translator" between two very different worlds with different acronyms, different schedules, and different rules. After our conversation, I’d say that’s the most accurate job title in this whole space.
The Workforce Side of Site Selection is...Where?
In his years as an economic developer, Nate has witnessed the evolution of site selection: namely far fewer in-person touch points, more and more early screening happens online, and AI agents are doing some of the heavy lifting.
So Nate took a look at how communities answer their workforce-readiness question in RFPs. What he usually finds is a surprisingly short list of community college programs, maybe a career tech center or a university tie. Unfortunately, he found very little about specific skills or the pathways behind them. That leads him to question:
Do they really have it shovel ready for the workforce?
His response to this gap is a project called the Shovel Ready Workforce, it's a system that connects people, educators, employers, and opportunities so a community is ready for what arrives next.
It starts in K-12, but not how you’d expect
Nate isn’t trying to tell kids what to be when they grow up. He wants them building skills that outlast any job title:
- Collaboration
- Metacognition
- An entrepreneurial mindset
Nate says when those foundations are there, employers will step in to teach the technical piece themselves. Some will even pay for the academic training instead of waiting on a system that moves slower than their business does.
Here's where Nate offers a creative solution.
Give the Students the Number 10 Project
The heart of the CAPS model is the client-connected project, and the way Nate sources them is brilliant. He asks employers one question. What’s the thing that would make your company more profitable, more efficient, or more attractive to customers, but, never gets done?
It’s always the number 10 project on your list that never budges. That’s the project we want the high school students to take on.
Every one of us has a number 10 on our list...mine is sitting there right now. Here’s why handing it to students works.
For these high school students, there's no job on the line and no money invested, so they walk in with creative ideas the company may have never considered. Nate calls them "junior consultants." The employer gets a first pass on something stalled, but sometimes it climbs the list.
Here's where the puzzle pieces fall into place. It's a veritable win/win.
The students discover an industry they didn’t know existed. Employers see who’s sharp. Over time, a network forms that can lead to internships and jobs, and eventually those students are the mentors sitting across the table. Nate advises against the usual pitch:
Just get in front of students and tell them how much money they can make.
That’s a short-term play, and CAPS is playing a longer game. It’s also why, when I asked about a corporation that wanted to recruit directly from a program, he pushed for broader access. This isn’t a recruiting channel.
So, Who Owns the Relationship?
I asked Nate whether the skills gap is a teaching problem or an employer engagement problem? The biggest problem, he said, is that people don’t listen to each other. Insurance, compliance, and state rules make both sides cautious. But the fix is more mundane than any of that. You need one person on each side whose job includes nurturing the relationship.
School counseling and human resource office, they’re no different. They just have different customers.
Both offices absorb compliance, training, and everything else that lands on their desks. Placing and hiring is rarely priority one. Whether a shop has four people or 400, someone has to be the named advocate, even though the payoff is medium term and the role isn’t a profit center.
I heard that same thinking when I asked what to tell a student whose passion has few local openings. Nate wouldn’t pick a side between steering them toward available jobs and backing their dream.
I’d rather guide them towards their purpose.
Purpose opens up a bigger conversation about the lifestyle a student wants to pursue, and where that opportunity actually lives.
What's Next?
Nate’s closing advice was simple. Communities need to stop working in silos. Employers, educators, workforce boards, economic development organizations, and civic groups should be talking to each other instead of guarding their piece of the puzzle.
So here’s your homework. This week, find the number 10 item on your list and ask whether a student team could take it on.
Then name the person who owns that relationship. Everything else follows from there.
Listen to our conversation: