FORT FAIRFIELD — The Aroostook Partnership is gearing up for its first-ever teacher-business social, to be held Wednesday, May 4, at Boondocks in Fort Fairfield.
Aroostook Partnership CEO Bob Dorsey said the idea for the socials came from the Education to Industry working group. This first in a series of informal gatherings will be with select educators from Limestone, Fort Fairfield and Easton, as a way of linking business leaders with teachers to discuss employment opportunities, business information, careers in the region and what skills their workplace requires.
“This effort is a continuation of a broader campaign to increase County business and employment awareness to ultimately increase retention efforts to secure our future workforce,” explained Dorsey.
“The first step was holding education summits to emphasize the importance of internships and the second was creating the ‘Opportunities Aroostook’ website to allow employers the ability to post jobs online. This is the next step in a series of 2016 Partnership efforts to increase awareness of growing job opportunities in Aroostook.”
The Partnership has been compiling data on jobs, turnover rates and economic trends, which will be on display as well as provided to educators and guidance counselors at these socials. Officials with Cary Medical Center, Maine Mutual Group, The Aroostook Medical Center, Pineland Farms, Emera Maine, FA Peabody, McCain, ReEnegry, K-Pel and possibly others will be available to talk to the teachers.
“We want to do two things in this effort — one, provide teachers with employment info that they can share with their students, and two, say ‘thank you’ to them for their hard work in teaching our future workforce by providing some free appetizers and a drink or two in a relaxed informal setting,” added Dorsey.
An electronic newsletter is also being developed to reach out to educators in Aroostook County, which will focus on emerging jobs, the history of the region and to highlight an educator who is going above and beyond to stimulate the minds of Aroostook County youngsters.
Additional teacher-business socials are planned to be held in the St. John Valley and Southern Aroostook in the future. The Partnership will also hold an Education to Industry summit this fall. The Aroostook Partnership has held two previous summits, but unlike those, this will be held at night to encourage additional teacher attendance.
Dorsey said the ultimate goal of the “Education to Industry” work is to grow the 20- to 44-year-old workforce in Aroostook County and provide a more skilled workforce for emerging jobs and those open due to retirements.
