An event that was held last week in Carroll brought schools and employers together to bridge the gap of knowing what careers are available for students following graduation.

Greene County Economic Development Director Ken Paxton says over 200 people including 18 high schools and eight colleges attended the first-ever Educator/Employer Summit sponsored with Western Iowa Advantage.

He states that the goal of the event was to keep young people in the eight-county region that includes Greene County following graduation from either high school or college.

Paxton points out the main message of the summit was about the decreasing workforce in Iowa and the entire Midwest region.  Specially, Paxton adds, there is a skills-gap within the needed workforce.  He talks about trying to change the notion that college is the only option for students to get a better education.

“That the trades are productive, can make a real good living at it.  We need to let young people, let them know that it’s okay to not go to college and to go to a trade school if that’s something that’s a better fit for you.”

Paxton comments that both the schools and local employers need to be on the same page when it comes to career availabilities in the area.

“Speakers talked about the fact of how important it is to do everything they can to get good employees into their facility.  And that ties into educators the importance of doing job training, job shadowing, internships, those kind of things that businesses can do to work with the high schools to make sure that those graduates know what’s available in the community.”

Future plans are to have another summit in the year 2016.