Paulding County Economic Development Press Release February 13, 2025
PAULDING – The Paulding County Business Advisory Council (BAC) Steering Committee held their first meeting in 2025 at the Paulding County Economic Development office, with 16 members in attendance.
The meeting opened with Dee Basinger, from Ashland University, sharing that Ashland was the largest recipient of the Ohio Education grant. The grant allows teachers to be credited CEU hours for attending Teacher Boot Camp. The Paulding County Education Service Center (ESC) 2025 Teacher Boot Camp will be held June 2-5 & 9. The event is open for educators, administrators, and school board members to sign up now. The bootcamp is designed to equip attendees with the necessary skills and knowledge to bridge the gap between education, and the workplace, and help them understand what is available right here in Paulding County business that matches what they teach in the school.
Mike Burkholder, representing the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, talked about the High School Tech Internship program and how this program may benefit both students and businesses. He also reiterated that businesses should be using Ohio Tech Cred as cost reimbursement for upskilling their employees. Burkholder shared that many schools are using this program right now to help teachers learn more about and understand artificial intelligence. The Tech Cred sign-up is open again to all Ohio businesses in March.
The meeting continued with Paulding County Economic Development Director Tim Copsey sharing information about the upcoming Career and College Expo on April 2nd. The event will be held at the Paulding County Fairgrounds OSU Extension building. Details of the event are coming together, including the use of the YouScience data. YouScience is an assessment tool that students in all three county schools are taking to identify the best potential career paths. Students will be provided a color code for their top three career paths. The businesses will be identified with the same color codes as to what they can offer. This should help better match students to businesses in their assessed career paths. Collaboration will continue up to the event.
In preparing junior and senior students for this event, the county economic development office will be visiting all three county high schools to pass out #pauldingcountystrong T-shirts to the seniors, and sharing QR code information to the juniors and seniors for access to a Paulding County business contact booklet and collecting emails. The emails will be added for receipt of the weekly county newsletter and future open employment position postings in the county. This should help students understand what employment opportunities are available in the county while they attend college, join the armed forces, or are simply looking for local employment.
The discussion then switched over to open employment positions in the county, both for youth and adults. In the past, the economic development office shared open positions through their weekly newsletter. This became a little cumbersome, so a decision was made to use the established OhioMeansJobs website. Recently, it has been requested that this perhaps be brought back into the PCED office. PCED Office Administrator Jessica Stechschulte shared that she has recently submitted a grant application for the BAC. One of the projects that the grant could fund would be the implementation of a vehicle to share open employment positions in the county. The group suggested that however it was decided to share the information, that perhaps students could help with this detail and possibly even be compensated through the grant. Stechschulte stated she will share information about the grant once she is notified.
The floor was then opened for any discussion. There was great interactive conversation, and ideas exchanged, on how students, educators, and the county businesses can create more opportunities to engage with each other. BAC meetings continue to make significant steps in strengthening the relationship between educational institutions and local businesses, aiming to better prepare students for their future workforce endeavors, either right out of high school, while attending college, or after college.
The full first quarter BAC meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, March 12th at the Paulding County OSU Extension office. For more information about the Business Advisory Council please reach out to Jessica Stechschulte at the economic development office at 419-399-8295 or office@pced.net.
