{"id":16560,"date":"2017-03-18T13:14:17","date_gmt":"2017-03-18T13:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vailvalleypartnership.com\/?p=16560"},"modified":"2017-03-18T13:14:17","modified_gmt":"2017-03-18T13:14:17","slug":"what-did-you-want-to-be-when-you-grew-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vailvalleypartnership.com\/2017\/03\/what-did-you-want-to-be-when-you-grew-up\/","title":{"rendered":"What did you want to be when you grew up?"},"content":{"rendered":"

What did you want to do when you grew up?
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Think back to your high school years. What did you want to do when you grew up?<\/p>\n

A fortunate few knew exactly what field they wanted to study or what work they wanted to pursue. Perhaps they knew they wanted to be a doctor, because their mother was a doctor and her mother was a doctor before her. Or perhaps they knew they wanted to be a lawyer, because the world needs more lawyers (apologies to my attorney friends). In my case, I knew that I wanted to be in resort marketing but never expected to help run a chamber of commerce.<\/p>\n

Understanding there are rare exceptions, let\u2019s acknowledge that the majority of young adults are not sure what career field they want to pursue, and that they don\u2019t know the plethora of career opportunities that exist (and recognize that\u2019s okay and perfectly normal). Exposing our high school students throughout the valley \u2013 from Eagle Valley High School to Vail Mountain School, and from Red Canyon High School to Battle Mountain High School \u2013 to career exploration options is a continued focus of Eagle County Schools through their CareerX program.<\/p>\n

CareerX brings Eagle County youth together with local businesses to create internship and job shadow experiences.\u00a0The purpose is to allow high school students opportunities to explore careers, learn about local businesses, and develop college and career plans that fit their interests.\u00a0This leads to a broad variety of internship and job shadow experiences allows students to expand their understanding of career opportunities and customize academic planning to fit career goals.<\/p>\n

This is aligned with the Eagle County Economic Development Plan where providing support for a quality workforce is one of five identified goals. Support for a quality workforce includes issues related to housing, transit, and workforce development. Further, the overarching goal of the Economic Development Plan is to promote the long-term economic health of Eagle County and solidify an economic base that is strong, diverse, and resilient.<\/p>\n

A quality workforce is necessary to achieve the goal of economic development, which is at its core about building sustainable communities that can thrive indefinitely. Put another way, sustainability (in this case economic sustainability) is loosely defined as what people want to happen indefinitely. Further, consider that the goal of most people in Eagle County is (or arguably should be) to optimize long term quality of life for our citizens and our community.<\/p>\n

Businesses across industry sector should consider participating in the 2017 Eagle County Schools Career Fair. The Career Fair is a cooperative effort by the Eagle County Schools, Rotary Clubs of Eagle County, Vail Valley Partnership, and the Colorado Workforce Center. We are organizing this opportunity to advance our common interest of keeping Eagle County and the<\/p>\n

Vail Valley a great place to live, learn, work, and do business. We need your participation to make this a successful event.<\/p>\n

There is still room for businesses to participate in the 2017 Eagle County Schools Career Fair for students and businesses. We are looking for 100+ companies in a variety of industries to be part of this event and the employees to share how they got started in their career and the pathway they took to get there. The fair will take place on Tuesday, April 4, 2017, from 8:30 to 11:30 AM (with set up from 7:30-8:00 AM).<\/p>\n

With the Career and Job Fair, we have a win-win-win situation:<\/p>\n

Win for the companies\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n