(gentle piano music) - [Voiceover] Funding for Working Capital is provided by the Friends of KTWU and Go Topeka.

(atmospheric music) - [Host] Coming up on Working Capital... - We also wanted to work on erasing that stigma that still exists in many households, that if their kid doesn't go straight from high school to a four-year university, that somehow their kid is doing something less than the other kid- - Yeah.

- down the street.

- Welcome back to Working Capital.

Today, we are gonna be focusing on our children, our teens, and their futures.

For quite a while here in America, the "American Dream" told you you could only go to college and that's the only way you're gonna ever get ahead.

Well, you can still get ahead going to college, but really, there's other skilled trades, other engineering careers.

Really, that's another route to go.

So now there is a lot of help for children these days to find out more about careers and a cool, cool business that is helping with that is HirePaths.

So with us today is Kristin Brighton from HirePaths.

Tell us, how did this start?

This is just amazing.

I wish I would've had it when I was younger, though, I think I kind of lucked out with my career, but... - (chuckles) Sure.

So I am one of the owners of New Boston Creative Group.

We're a marketing firm based outta Manhattan and I've been very involved in our community.

All of our company owners have been very community-minded.

In the late 2014, 2015, '16 years, I was on the executive board of the Manhattan Area Chamber of Commerce.

And during that time I got to go to lots of meetings where everybody was talking about the fact that we were having this impending workforce shortage.

And part of the issue was, was our young people were not choosing to go into many of the careers that Kansas employers needed.

All the kids today, if you talk to 'em, wanna be a YouTube influencer, they wanna be a professional athlete or a sportscaster, but you don't get many kids who say I wanna become an electrician.

And so after going to meeting after meeting, I started getting frustrating hearing people complain about this and I thought, gosh, as the owner of a marketing firm, is there something our business could do to help parents get a better idea about all of these opportunities being left on the table?

Especially when you compare the rising costs of higher education with this changing workforce, it's really become a situation where, back when I was a a youngster in the '80s and '90s, it was pretty much just a given I was gonna go to college after high school, but now parents are looking at it being a six-figure investment for a young person to go to college.

- It was still expensive when we were younger, but now yeah, it's almost they know you have to take out the loan so the prices have skyrocketed.

I don't wanna put it out there.

I know there's a lot more going into that, but it's what it seems like to the average consumer and average household.

- Absolutely, and for a young person who doesn't really know what they wanna do, it doesn't make financial sense to just go on and go to college with your friends if you absolutely have no clue.

This year, I happen to know this because I have a freshman entering University of Kansas, it's estimated to be $26,000 to go to college.

My first semester at K State was $900.

- I think mine was right around there, 900, maybe 1100- - Yeah.

- with all my books and- - Absolutely.

And so it's a huge financial investment that families really have to think about today.

And so when you couple that with the fact that there are all of these jobs being unfilled, if a young person doesn't really know what they wanna do, there needs to be a lot more research done about all the different options on the table.

- Yeah, being able to see that before you even head out the door helps a lot to decide, do I wanna go left or right?

- Absolutely.

And with the increase of career and technical education in high schools and the ability for young people to be able to take dual credit classes before they even graduate high school, there are so many opportunities on the table that if kids and families can just be supportive and encouraging of their kids to go into those fields, they can get a lot of free training and education or at least exploration to see, is this something I wanna do?

Or maybe go down that path a little bit, decide, no, I don't wanna do that- - Yeah.

- switch gears and not find yourself with several semesters of student loan debt.

So that's what we set out to do.

So around 2018, I started talking to people across the state through a lot of state agencies and people who work in economic development and workforce development.

And I was like, it seems to me, as the parent of a 12-year-old and a 14-year-old at this time, that everything I was hearing about the needs in our workforce, I was hearing wearing my Chamber of Commerce hat and my business owner hat, not my mom hat.

- Yeah.

- And so I felt like we needed to do a marketing campaign statewide to make more of more dialogue in our communities about all of the changes and new opportunities that were available to families.

We also wanted to work on erasing that stigma that still exists in many households, that if their kid doesn't go straight from high school to a four-year university, that somehow their kid is doing something less than the other kid- - Yeah.

- down the street, but in reality, we wanted to open people's eyes that the post-secondary options, it's just a wide buffet.

There are so many different options.

You can get paid to go out and become an apprentice and learn a skill.

And so you don't graduate with debt, you graduate with several years of a good income while you're learning those skills.

So there's so many different possibilities out there for kids today.

And we just wanted to make them more aware of these opportunities that they're right here in Kansas.

- You're filling in a lot of big gaps 'cause you know, the thing college has on people, you still don't know what you wanna do a lot of times, That's your first couple years getting your core curriculum, which is nice in high school now being able to get a lot of outta the way, but they get you when you don't know.

Whereas if you had had an experience to see an electrician or a plumber or someone working the aerospace fields, you may have pivoted that way instead.

So you have the business going.

What is the first way you started outreaching to youth?

- Absolutely.

So in 2019, we set up a fund with a community foundation called the Kansas Rural Communities Foundation.

And we went out to some of the largest employers in the state and asked them to make investments to help us get this crazy idea off the ground.

And I always wanna take a moment because I had three businesses who pledged $150,000 to help us get started.

And those were Textron Aviation out of Wichita, Stormont Vail out of Topeka and the Kansas Contractors Association, which is a statewide professional network of the heavy contractors.

- And I mean, that's huge.

I mean, that'd be big anywhere, but especially in what I would say Kansas dollars, that's a huge investment in something brand new.

So they really did see a vision and a benefit there.

- Absolutely.

And so that pledge of three years of funding really helped us to take the idea out of my brain and start to build it.

We built a website, we started developing content, we started thinking about how this was gonna work and we were all set to launch our program in March of 2020 when the whole world shut down and what I needed to finish, I needed out of Textron Aviation and Stormont Vail Health, and both healthcare and aviation were completely derailed the first few months of the pandemic.

So we had to press pause.

But in the fall of '20, I got back in front of them, showed them what we had built and made it clear to them what I needed to finish up.

And then they got excited and they helped us do that.

And so we were able to launch our program February 1st of '21.

And so now the program has been running for over three years.

Shortly after we launched, I was able to get back in front of Kansas State Department of Education Commissioner Randy Watson.

And I showed him the program and it was really good timing because he at that point in time had Federal ESSER grants available.

And so he actually made an investment in HirePaths, which allowed us to add the Cool Careers video series, which is really what we're here today to talk about.

- That really is.

I tell you what, let's take a quick look at a little bit of one of the Cool Career videos and then after the break, we'll talk about how these come to fruition.

And I think you'll really like the hosts involved here.

So that's one of the coolest parts.

So stick around.

You're watching Working Capital.

- Hi, I'm Maya.

More than 25,000 planks take off and land each day in the United States.

But did you know most of these planes get their start in Kansas?

I sure didn't.

That's why we're here in Wichita at the headquarters of Spirit AeroSystems.

Spirit AeroSystems is a aerostructure manufacturing company.

That means they make the parts of the plane that give it its shape and help it fly, like the body, wings and cockpits.

They have locations all over the world, including places like the United Kingdom, France, Malaysia, and Morocco.

More than 10,000 people work at Spirit AeroSystems Wichita facility.

It is the largest employer in Kansas.

While we're here, we're gonna follow a sheet metal mechanic, a person who helps build the body of the plane.

Let's go!

(energetic music) When I first got to Spirit AeroSystems, I was given a tour by Alex who works in human resources.

I can't believe how big this place is and how many people work here.

At the end of our tour, he took me to an observation deck to meet a real sheet metal mechanic, which is an entry-level job here at Spirit.

Let me introduce you to Tray.

Tray is a mechanic here at Spirit.

Tray, what does a sheet metal mechanic do?

- Well, I install a frame, a part of the fuselage.

(air swooshing) So I get to help build an airplane every day.

- That's really cool.

You get to help build an airplane every day.

But what's a fuselage?

- That's a good question, Maya.

Fuselage is the main body where the passengers sit.

(air swooshing) It's like the shell of the airplane.

So all the green structures that you see behind us, they're all fuselages.

- You mean each of these will become planes?

There are tons of planes in this place.

- Oh, yeah.

I've helped worked on over 500 planes myself.

People's lives depend on our work and so it's important that we help build the planes to the highest standards.

It's awesome to know that I can look up in the sky, see airplanes up there and know that I've helped build.

- That does sound awesome.

Is there any chance I can see you work?

- Oh, yeah.

I can show you where we train people for this job.

Maybe you could try it out for yourself.

Come on, follow me.

(bright music) - [Maya] Tray took me to Spirit AeroSystems sheet metal training area to show me how and where they drill into sheet metal.

(air swooshing) He showed off some of the tools he uses on a daily basis.

I got to even drill some rivets and it was harder than expected.

- [Tray] You give it a little run, (drill buzzing) then you press it on there (drill buzzing) and then push this through and then give it a press.

(drill buzzing) You in there, there.

(drill buzzing) Boom, just like that.

(drill buzzing) (upbeat music) - [Maya] I did it!

- [Tray] You can place this into that hole right there.

(hammer thudding) - [Maya] I don't know.

- [Tray] No, you good, you good.

(upbeat music) - Welcome back to Working Capital.

I hope you thought that was as cool as I did.

So when are there gonna be kids actually running the cameras too?

- Well, there's all sorts- - Working on it.

- of ideas of how to get kids involved.

So hopefully the program continues growing strong and we can actually start working some high school students in.

- Wind turbine technician, welder, elementary teachers, heavy equipment operators, robotics and automation.

I mean, it's all across the board.

It's just not electrician, plumber, farmer.

You're finding these really cool, almost niche jobs and really promoting those.

So what kind of feedback have you gotten from kids and parents?

- Well, I've been in a fourth grade classroom where I've been able to show them and I think one of the biggest compliments is after a kid watched one of the episodes they said, "Are there more of those?"

And I was like, "Yes, there are 20 more."

And they got all excited.

So I felt like we must be finally doing something right.

But yeah, what we do is we do research to figure out kind of what are the most high demand jobs and we think about how can we make those visually interesting for kids.

So we really start with a long list from the Department of Labor and then we go from there.

And then when I'm talking to people out in the world or I hear speeches, I heard Lieutenant Governor Toland talk about the need for cybersecurity analysts, and so that became our very first episode.

There's been a lot of talk in the state over the past year about how Kansas ranked 51st in the nation for mental health providers.

So we went ahead and we did an episode on that line.

We've been hearing a lot about the need for more land surveyors and a lack of land surveyors slowing down construction projects.

So we're working on a new one this fall that's gonna feature the job of a land surveyor.

We try to be listening and take guidance from what we're hearing from people out in the business world and try to turn them into episodes that kids will find interesting on screen.

- Do you have a favorite so far that you've seen or that you can... - Every one of 'em has has differences.

Two of the ones from season two have probably been the ones that I feel like have worked the best.

And that was our wind turbine tech, which is episode eight, and then the pilot, which is episode 11.

And those actually got a regional Emmy nomination.

So that was pretty exciting.

- Congratulations.

- Thank you - To me that's award in and of itself, so that's great.

- Yeah, it was pretty cool.

We got to go to an award ceremony in Branson and get all dressed up and it was a lot of fun.

We didn't win, but we still thought it was pretty cool to be there.

- Any place you can get this name out there is just gonna help the cause.

- Absolutely.

We're just trying to make more people aware that we exist so that more parents and teachers discover our content and start introducing kids to all the materials we've made available to them free of charge on the internet.

- And speaking of that, we'll put up the website and get you there to see all these videos on there and all the other helpful tips.

And they have activities for kids, but these are getting packaged together.

And we'll be- - Yes.

- showing them here.

They'll be shown on Kansas public television stations.

So it's kind of cool, besides being online, you'll be in front of the television where, you know, one of our best messages on public television just is learning, so- - Yes.

- It's kind of, it just fits.

- I'm super excited about this partnership.

So each episode as they were originally conceived were short videos that were between 5 and 10 minutes long.

But through this partnership with the local affiliate PBS stations across the state, we've been able to package them into 30-minute episodes, kind of around a similar theme.

So we've got at least seven that are coming and then a few more that'll be in the works for the future.

So we're really excited to get those out.

We're probably gonna have a big party on premier day and it'll be really cool to see and broadcast.

- And really, I do love having children host those.

I mean, there's some great adults that can host content that really grabs kids, but when it's kids asking the questions and learning right there with the worker, it's just magical.

- I think that's the hook.

- How do you find all these children though that, I mean, working in television, finding someone who's comfortable in front of a camera that can be kind of challenging.

- And these are real kids.

While some- - Who wanna be on TikTok.

- Yes, and some of them are kids who have done theater, and in some cases, we've been able to, you know, reach out to Wichita community, the theater, or whatever and find a kid.

But in some parts of the state, that resource doesn't exist.

So really pretty much what we do is we find a business who's willing to work with us that has an employee in the job we wanna feature and then we start reaching out in that community to try to find a kid.

In some cases they're a child of an employee that works at that company.

Other cases we've gone through a drama teacher or a debate and forensics coach at the high school.

Sometimes we've actually just put the word out.

We've reached out to 4H agents just really trying to find kids who are good at public speaking or are interested in acting and who are willing to do this.

The kids are paid $250 to be in our show, - Okay.

but their expectation is they come in with their lines pretty well memorized.

The professionals usually don't have their lines memorized.

And that's usually my job- - No?

- on set to coach them through what they need to say.

But the kids are supposed to come in with their lines memorized and they do a pretty good job.

- How much do the kids influence the actual segment or do they have any say in the editing process?

- No, at this point in time, the kids are pretty much there for the day of the filming and then we send it to them when it's all done.

And they're usually pretty excited to see it put together.

We've had a few cases where we've touched back out and had a kid record a television or a radio commercial for us or something like that.

But pretty much the kids have mostly just been involved in the day of the filming.

- You talked about talking with a fourth grade class and they were like, "Is there more, is there more?"

Are there resources where people will go out to classrooms like this and talk about the HirePaths?

Or is that not part of the program yet?

- Right now we're really a marketing campaign.

I'm a school board member in Manhattan and a lot of people are starting to associate me with this program.

So I've been invited into classrooms.

We also participate in a program in Manhattan called Classroom to Careers.

So I've been, when I can, accepting invitations, sometimes to come out and talk about different options with kids.

I've talked to high school students, I've talked to elementary school students and I tailor my message.

But it's really cool to get to watch firsthand the classrooms of kids look at the content.

The whole idea was that kids live vicariously through the host and I don't think they would've paid as good of attention if it was just an adult telling them about what they do, kind of like a guest speaker in a classroom.

But this is the case where there's always something hands-on that the episode host gets to do.

And we hope that the kids watching the video feel like they kind of get it to experience what it's like to do that job just by watching the video from the comfort of their home.

- And each episode is a different kid.

You haven't found four or five and they're blanketing the whole thing.

It's pretty amazing to find that many and you can see the interest in their eyes of what they're learning about.

- Originally we kind of thought we would just find a few hosts, but we've been all over the state.

I'd like to say we have filmed from Ulysses to Pittsburgh and so it's too random.

We pretty much have to find an employer who's willing to work with us and then find a kid in that area.

So yeah, some kids are a little bit better than others, but each one has brought a different twist to their particular episode.

- I tell you what, let's take another look at another episode right now and then after the break we'll talk a little more with Kristin and find out what's in the future for HirePaths.

Stick around.

You're watching Working Capital.

(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Lance, and today, we're at the Meridian Way Wind Farm near Concordia, Kansas.

A wind farm is a place with a bunch of wind turbines, which are basically modern windmills.

They generate electricity as the wind spins their blades.

Kansas cause a lot of wind.

So you've probably seen turbines just like these when you've driven around the state.

There are nearly 70 turbines at the Meridian Way Wind Farm.

Meridian Way is one of three wind farms in Kansas owned by EDP Renewables, a global leader in the renewable energy industry.

EDPR is the fourth largest renewable energy producer in the world.

They have 58 wind farms and nine solar parks which collect energy from the sun in North America alone.

And they have farms in 26 other countries.

Today, we're gonna learn about the job of a wind turbine technician who maintains and fixes these humongous structures.

We're also gonna get to climb inside one of these bad boys.

Let's go!

(energetic music) We're here at the Wind Farm talking with Ethan who's worked here at Meridian Way for over 11 years.

Thanks for hanging out with us today, Ethan.

So could you start by telling us some advantages of wind energy?

- Sure.

There are lots of advantages to wind energy, (air swooshing) which is why it's such a fast growing field.

In the state of Kansas 20 years ago, there weren't hardly any wind turbines.

Now there are (air swooshing) over 3,500 wind turbines.

That's enough wind turbines to generate power for 1.6 million homes and over 40% of all the electricity needs in the state of Kansas.

- Wow, I had no idea.

That's so cool!

So how does wind energy compare to other kinds of energy?

- [Ethan] There are a lot of reasons why we're using more and more wind power.

It costs less to produce.

We can easily generate it in the United States.

It's sustainable.

We'll never run out of wind.

Wind turbines can be put on existing farms and ranches so they don't use a lot of land.

Plus, farmers and ranchers make extra money by renting their land to energy companies.

And wind energy has a very low impact on the environment.

You don't have to use any water or burn anything, so they don't create any pollution.

- There are a lot of reasons wind energy makes sense, especially in Kansas, right?

I mean, it's always windy here.

- [Ethan] Absolutely.

It only takes six to eight miles an hour to start producing wind energy.

And in the state of Kansas, that's nearly all the time, especially 2 to 300 feet in the air.

- So what does a wind turbine tech do exactly?

- The wind turbine technicians take care of the repair and maintenance of the wind turbines.

It's my job to help oversee that work and make sure we're following our safety and environmental standards.

We do that to make sure we're not harming the environment or anything around the wind farm.

I also help oversee the electrical grid substation where our power is connected to the nationwide supply of power.

We make so much wind energy, we can share it with other states surrounding Kansas.

We do a lot of different types of work in this field.

We work on the- - Welcome back.

I hope you enjoyed another Cool Career 'cause I know I did.

So I know parents and everyone will also be so enthralled with all this, but you also have have places on the website for parents.

You also have success stories.

Tell us a little bit more about the other resources and the other sections.

- Absolutely.

So parents are the primary target audience, but we have three secondary audiences and that's the kids themselves.

We don't think many eight year olds are probably gonna go out of their way to go out and do career exploration on their own.

So we think the adult in their life will have to bring that content to them.

So whether it's their parent, their grandparent, their babysitter, or their classroom teacher, we wanna provide resources to help them do career exploration in exciting ways.

So one of the things we have built over the last three and a half years is a whole library of what we call Real Success Stories.

Some of them are written stories, some of them are short videos that talk about how somebody got started in their career.

A lot of times they start with, what did you wanna be when you were a kid?

And so they, you know, "I thought I wanted to be a veterinarian."

I think that's the most common option.

- Yeah.

- But then it talks about what life instances brought them to the career they actually are in.

It talks about how they got their training, what they love about what they do, and then what advice they would have for somebody who maybe would want a similar career.

And it's been kind of fun because as we've done this along the way, we've built a huge following of teachers who are starting to use this in their classrooms.

We certainly help.

Parents are showing them at home with their kids, but kind of a third audience has started to develop and that's young adults.

And when we look at the analytics for our website, we actually have a fairly significant number of people, 18 to 30, who are watching our videos.

Now what we don't know is whether some of those are young teachers who are using our videos 'cause a lot of classroom teachers are 22 to 30 years old.

But we also think that some young adults are stumbling upon them as well.

And as long as they're okay with the fact that the host of the show is usually between the ages of 12 and 16, if we're providing content to them as well, all the better.

- It probably helps as a starting point.

So you're not, you know, over inundated with all the skill sets that you need for some career.

You know, get your feet wet.

And I mean, that's the perfect age 'cause you think of all the college kids who they get to their junior year, "I don't what I'm gonna do.

Maybe I'll step away for a while or..." So I totally see why that demographic would be hitting, so - Yeah, absolutely.

And the Real Success Stories, they're not as focused just on kids.

I mean, they're very appropriate for young adults as well.

And a lot of them tell the story of somebody who ended up going one way in their career, then a life change happened and they went a whole completely different path.

There's a number of them about people who work for some of the larger employers in the state that have tuition reimbursement programs.

And so maybe they started at an entry level job, but then over time their employer invested in them and paid for them to go to college and help them earn their bachelor's degree or their master's degree or I know there's at least two that have PhDs that their employer paid for.

So it's the whole point is- - Wow.

to show people that you're a learner for a lifetime.

You're never gonna be able to stop learning.

There's always other roots and possibilities.

- Yeah, your path can branch.

- There's a whole buffet of options you can choose from.

And so if a cost of higher education is what's keeping you from going into some sort of post-secondary training, there are employers out there that will help you pay for those bills as long as you'll be a good employee for them in the long run.

So we wanna just show people, there are all different kinds of path to success.

There's no one better path than the other.

- And you may get in one business and your path may branch inside that business.

I saw in one of the Cool Career videos with the welding, I think he started in there in the sanding area, but there was a kind of a workforce shortage and asked him, "Hey, you wanna learn to weld?"

And they taught him to weld and his career has just blown up from there.

So it's fantastic- - Yep.

- when you keep your eyes and mind open to other pathways.

- Absolutely.

He learned a very valuable skill from his employer.

Then he knows if he goes on and leaves that employer and goes somewhere else, he can take that skill wealth.

- That's equity in himself that he's built.

- Yep.

- So besides the kids getting involved, I mean, it takes a lot of businesses.

How do you find all these different businesses and at this point, are businesses contacting you because they think their careers are so cool, they wanna show 'em off?

- We certainly have had those situations, whether it's professional organizations or businesses who have stumbled upon one of our videos and then they've reached out to me on LinkedIn or they've somehow contacted HirePaths and say, "Hey, I've got an idea for you."

And so those are super exciting moments and a number of them now have come about that way.

We've got a family physician episode coming up that came through a partnership that was suggested by KU Med.

The e-shipping episode, episode I think 12, that one was somebody who'd seen the episode we filmed at Garmin.

And so it's starting to really trickle and it's exciting when the community really starting to churn out new ideas.

- Are you starting to see in your algorithms that the momentum taking off?

- Absolutely, I mean, there's a definite correlation to over time, it's just continuing to grow.

And some of our older videos now that have been out for two or three years, the numbers have really started to take off as other people have discovered them.

And honestly, I think a lot of kids, they just start watching one and then the YouTube feeds them another one and they just keep going.

- They're used to it, especially, you know, 3 minutes, 10 minutes at the longest.

So that's kind of long form for children these days, but still, the way they're...

They just like to keep going.

You know, you start one and they probably burn through them all.

- You know, I think that if a young person's engaged, you don't have to worry about the length.

They'll watch it.

- That's true.

That's true.

I hope you've enjoyed today's episode.

Kristin, this is just, it's much needed.

Investing back in our children and our future is definitely a bright spot for Kansas.

So thank you, Kristin.

And thank you all for joining us.

Make sure you check out HirePaths.com.

You'll find some great information there.

So we hope to see you next time.

You've been watching Working Capital.

- [Voiceover] Funding for Working Capital is provided by the Friends of KTWU and Go Topeka.

(atmospheric music)