What does a Community-Connected Career Readiness Program Look Like? | A Case Study with YouScience

Shownotes

In this episode of the Getting Smart Podcast, Mason Pashia and his guests talk about how YouScience is transforming career navigation for students and educators. Joined by an achieved panel of guests, including Peter Van Mondfrans from YouScience, Kaitlyn Tyler from the Greater Springfield Partnership, Christina Walters of Night Dispatch, and Jamison Truebenbach from the Global Impact STEM Academy, the discussion explores the dynamic intersection of education, workforce development, and technology. They go in-depth on YouScience’s unique approach to identifying student aptitudes and matching them with career opportunities, the critical role of local partnerships in retaining talent, and the transformative impact of real-world learning experiences.

Tune in to learn how this collaborative effort is equipping students with the tools, confidence, and language to thrive in the evolving job market, while fostering a stronger connection between education and industry.

Outline

(00:00) Introduction to the Getting Smart Podcast
(01:18) Meet the Guests
(05:04) Pete’s Sales Journey and Career Insights
(07:38) Understanding Aptitudes with YouScience
(09:45) YouScience’s Impact on Employers and Students
(14:56) Greater Springfield Partnership’s Role
(17:53) Real-World Learning and Internships
(40:42) Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Introduction to the Getting Smart Podcast

Mason Pashia: You are listening to the Getting Smart podcast. I’m Mason Pashia. Most of us, when driving from one point to another, use a GPS system to show us the fastest route. But using a GPS isn’t a perfect metaphor for navigating career life because using a GPS requires that we know in advance the exact location of our destination. In our career life, we don’t know exactly what our destination will be. It’s more like being an explorer moving into uncharted territory. We have a general sense of direction, but we don’t discover the destination until we arrive. As a teen or a young adult, we may have a general idea of careers, and we may have learned stories from other travelers, but our own career journey takes shape as life progresses and new experiences and opportunities present themselves, and even when we enter a desired career path, the journey continues.

Mason Pashia: That’s an excerpt from the new “Preparing Tomorrow’s Workforce,” a book from the team at YouScience, written by Hans Meeder, a Senior Fellow for Education and Workforce Innovation at YouScience. Today we get to dig into what this looks like in practice with a handful of awesome guests. So today, I’m joined by some key parts of this career navigation equation that I illustrated above.

We are joined by Peter Van Mondfrans from YouScience, Kaitlyn Tyler, the Talent and Education Coordinator at the Greater Springfield Partnership, Christina Walters, the owner of Night Dispatch, and Jamison Truebenbach, Chief Academic Officer of the Global Impact STEM Academy. Hey all, welcome.

I think we’re setting a record today. Four guests live in person might be our all-time high. So thanks for joining us and all the tech that goes along with that.

Peter Van Mondfrans: Thanks for having us on, Mason.

Mason Pashia: You bet. Another thing in this “Preparing Tomorrow’s Workforce” book that really struck me as I was reading through it, there were these 10 career navigation questions that I know I would’ve been asked when I was in middle school, starting honestly, but then also in high school again and again. And the first one is it really asks students to understand and think about their why. So I’m gonna ask all of you right now. What is your why and roughly when do you think you first began to encounter having an answer to that question or the question, whichever is more interesting. Jamison, I might start with you. You were the first one to join me today, so we’re gonna.

Meet the Guests

Jamison Truebenbach: Yeah, absolutely. School was never easy for me. I had to work extremely hard to be successful. And I had a teacher my junior year of high school who finally made math make sense. And I got a B, my highest grade in math in the course of my educational career. And I thought, okay, I wanna be a teacher. I wanna change kids’ lives. I wanna make kids happy. I wanna make education fun for them. And so I decided that I wanted to be an intervention specialist. I struggled so hard and worked so hard, and I thought there are creative ways to help kids learn. And then when I got into the field, I loved it. I was an intervention specialist for 15 years. And I got to the point in my career was like, man. I’ve worked with some teachers, some are really great and some need some extra support. And so I found a calling as a school administrator because I wanted to be that support for the teachers who were a little lost or just not sure how to make things better. And so that’s kind of where I, I went into education and administration is because I wanna make a difference in students’ and staff lives.

Mason Pashia: That’s beautiful. Thanks, Jamison. Christina, how about you?

Christina Walters: Well, so I was always kind of outside of the box person. I was voted most likely to turn a teacher’s hair gray in high school by a slide. They all said, uh, I was a talker. I just wanted to go work. Uh, looking back now, I realized I was an entrepreneur. And the hardest part about that was we didn’t have anything like YouScience or anything like that. So I had to figure it out by doing all the jobs I didn’t want to do and realizing after spending a good chunk of time, like this is not for me. And then this just came, came about and I’ve been running with it for 16 years.

Mason Pashia: I love it. Kaitlyn, how about you?

Kaitlyn Tyler: My story’s kind of similar to Jamison. I loved education, I loved working with kids, but I was a student that was kind of that missing middle kid. So I have an older sister that’s very outgoing and I have a younger brother who’s extremely outgoing. But in high school, I was the quiet kid, so I was the kid that kind of got overlooked. I had great grades, I did all the things I was supposed to do, but no one really paid attention. To me personally. So when I went into the education field, that’s what I wanted to do. I really wanted to focus on those kids who everybody else is overlooking, they’re kind of doing what they’re supposed to be, but no one’s given them that extra attention. Started out with preschoolers, so really loved that. Did that for 12 years, but then found a passion to kind of come back and wrap back around and help them at the end of their journey or end of high school journey. And that’s kind of how I’ve landed here.

Mason Pashia: Great. Thanks for sharing.

Pete’s Sales Journey and Career Insights

Mason Pashia: And then Pete, last but not least.

Peter Van Mondfrans: Yeah. Have you ever been asked the question, what do you want to be when you grow up? I got that question in elementary school and all through my middle and high school years and never had an answer. It was a blank stare and maybe even a deer in the headlights look. When that question came to me, I. At 10 years old, I had just a little bit of insight into where I might point myself. Uh, I was a Cub Scout and I was reading a magazine for boys called Boys’ Life, and I saw this really cool advertisement for a group called Olympic Sales Club that had a page full of really exciting prizes. And I, I went to my parents and I said, how can I earn these prizes? They said, well, you gotta go out and sell something. And I thought, well, what is that? I, I can do that. Why not? You know? And it was, it was, uh, uh, greeting cards and calendars and stationary, and they signed me up for Olympic Sales Club, and I went door to door at 10 years old to sell those calendars and cards, and I had success. I, I was selling up a storm and, and my dad says, Pete, you might be a sales guy. And I, I, it had never occurred to me that that might be my path. But I did know one thing, Mason, and that is. That I love people, that I loved interacting with people and I wanted to do something important that makes a difference. And my real why came later in life when I started down the path of, of working in business in a variety of different positions. But I still think in some ways the why is developing in evolving, but. I know that what, what I’m really wired to do is make an impact in, in people’s lives in a positive way. That’s what I’m about and that’s kind of how I ended up at YouScience.

Mason Pashia: That’s great. When you said Olympic Sales Club, I was picturing like a sailboat and then it started to make a lot more sense. So that, uh, that’s great. Thanks. And I think I’ve probably talked about this on the show before, but it’s not fair to just ask you all this question. I think mine, I was big into music in high school, still have guitars behind me for anyone watching this. And then I think pursued that for a little while and over time was able to get at really what I loved doing in that, which was, uh, telling stories, uh, through songs and writing music. So I, uh, ended up sort of today being, with Getting Smart and leading all the storytelling efforts. So I think you can find your why in a, in a bunch of different

Kaitlyn Tyler: Mm-hmm.

Mason Pashia: I love that how you said, Peter, that it’s a iterative experience. Like you, you’re still in pursuit of your why even though you’re, you’re beginning to maybe be able to identify it in a crowd.

Understanding Aptitudes with YouScience

Mason Pashia: So we’re, we’re gathered here today to talk a little bit about YouScience and how it empowers, uh, systems of people to do really awesome things for young people. Uh. Pete as a, the, as the YouScience representative on the call. Let’s start with a definition. I think you all really excel in the aptitude space. Uh, you gave me access to the aptitude, like assessments last time, and I took a bunch of ’em and had a ball. So how is an aptitude different than a skill?

Peter Van Mondfrans: Yeah. I love this question, Mason, and it’s really important because if there’s one thing I can impress on your listeners is the power of aptitudes and how. They’re different from other approaches that we take when we’re trying to provide guidance to a learner on their education and career pathway. So aptitudes, in their simplest sense, are your innate talents. They’re permanent, they’re wired into who you are. In fact, one of the things that we really love to say around YouScience, is that everyone has genius, and we sincerely believe that everyone has their own abilities and their own talents. They start to develop when you’re very young, but they solidify at age 14 and they’re permanent through the rest of your life. So you can think of ’em as the foundation for propelling yourself forward on a path that gives you the highest probability of success based on what you’re good at, skills you are acquired. So even though your, your innate talents are there and they do connect, they’re almost inextricably linked with, with skills, you still have to hustle and you still have to develop those skills and build that on top of your aptitudes. But when you combine those two things together and you add interests into that equation, then you start to have passion about your path and where that can lead you.

Mason Pashia: That’s great. And I think, and that’s where YouScience really comes in too. I mean, I think there’s, there’s a handful of ways to assess your own aptitudes out there in the world. But YouScience really takes it that next step, and I think that’s what sets it apart. Uh, can you tell us a little bit more about how YouScience sort of provides this environment to discover your aptitudes and then lets you run with them a little further?

YouScience’s Impact on Employers and Students

Peter Van Mondfrans: If you can think about the way aptitude assessments have been delivered in the past, this is an in-person meeting with a psychometrician sitting across from you for hours, asking questions, giving you different kinds of exercises to objectively assess what you’re good at. You know, we, we recognized that we needed to bring this to people and make it available, democratize it, if you will, so that everyone has a chance to discover their genius and, and learn what, what their talents point them toward. So, YouScience about 10 years ago, partnered with the Ball Foundation to, to take their Ball Aptitude Battery and digitize it and put it in an environment where you could actually almost gamify it, you said you participated. It’s almost like we call ’em brain games or exercises where they’re timed elements so any person can go in and participate in those and and start that process so we make that available through our platform called BrightPath to any student of any age adult that are interested in learning about their aptitudes.

Mason Pashia: That’s great. And then at some, some point in this process, uh, you’ve really started to. Support employers on the other side of this equation too, right? So you’re, you’re beginning to kind of pull people together. Uh, talk a little bit about what that looks like.

Peter Van Mondfrans: Yeah. That’s such an important point, Mason, because when you look at an education and career planning solution, often there’s a couple things. Number one, they’re interest based. If you think about it, uh, you know, it’s like you’re, you’re being asked questions about yourself and you’re giving your answers, and it’s almost like walking up to a mirror, an interest inventory, whereas aptitudes are like opening a door. That’s a big difference between the two, but we recognize that, you know, that we can’t just help someone start their journey. We have to have a destination. Point to your point about GPS early. Earlier and a lot of career, uh, assessments and a lot of other programs, they will get you to some ideas about generalized careers you could consider, but they stop there or they just focus on getting you into a postsecondary education environment and they stop there. And we realized at YouScience that really what we need to be doing is connecting individuals in an individualized way. I. To their best fit career opportunities, and then start the engagement process with employers. So one of our biggest differentiators is we have a solution called Career Connections in our platform where employers come in and they present themselves to students. We have a company overview pages where they can put multimedia content, other information to tell their story. As one of my good friends, Aaron Stark, CEO of 47 G puts it marketing themselves to students. He sees the need for industry to do a better job of that, to excite students, to increase interest in careers, but engage with students younger so that they begin to see the possibilities of not just what they can do for a living, but who they can do it with, and try to do that in a localized way, so we can keep local talent local. Uh, enable employers who have ongoing hiring needs to engage earlier and build sustainable talent pipelines. So that is a unique aspect of what we do. We bring employers into the equation and we start that process of engagement, exposure and ultimately a handshake between the two parties.

Mason Pashia: That’s awesome. We’re about to get into one of those specific stories here in a second, help our listeners understand the scope of YouScience. Like how many students are we talking are using this platform?

Peter Van Mondfrans: Yeah, well currently we have over two and a half million students who have completed aptitude assessments, and you can quadruple that number of students engaging in the platform who are taking. Proctored certification exams. So we do sponsor over 200, uh, industry recognized certifications in our platform, and students are engaging with that so they can have skills validation and certification as they graduate to start ’em on that path. We have over 7,000 schools across the country that are working with YouScience right now. That includes some postsecondary schools and a large number of K through 12. Schools and districts all over the country. So, and then we have over 16,000 employers in our platform. And of course we wanna see that number grow every single day.

Mason Pashia: I’ll, I’ll just add something. I’ve had the pleasure of talking with you once before, and in that conversation you made it, uh, additionally clear, you highlighted it by saying K 12 here, but you start early, you start with interest inventories and I believe sixth grade that becomes like an annual process and then really kick off in middle school with the rest of this. So I just wanna reemphasize how important it’s to start this conversation early.

Peter Van Mondfrans: Definitely, definitely. And employers re are recognizing that the current approach isn’t yielding the results they need. And so they’ve gotta start being more intentional with the younger emerging talent.

Greater Springfield Partnership’s Role

Mason Pashia: Kaitlyn, tell us a little bit about how you’re involved in this and the Greater Springfield Partnership and just if what Pete was saying is true, like if, if this is something that employers are seeing a need for and how you all are helping, uh, match that demand.

Kaitlyn Tyler: Absolutely. So we became involved with YouScience a little over three years ago. And we have run with it ever since. So it’s something that actually we pay for, for all of our schools to use. So all of the schools in Clark County, and that is including our Springfield City schools, use this platform. For the first time last year, every school was onboard in both high school and middle school to use it. And it’s game changing. Our employers for the first time are becoming engaged with this. It is something that was part of our capital campaign for our CIC, so our Community Improvement Corporation, we wrapped that into what we were doing and they bought it in. So we have tons of employers who are getting ready to onboard with YouScience for the employer aspect of it, so that, like Pete said, we could kind of engage the two worlds. It’s just the next step in the process. We’ve been engaging with employers for a while. They come into our schools, they meet our students. Our students go to site visits with our employers. We have a great group here in Springfield. But YouScience just adds that extra step for our employers to really engage and kind of merge the two worlds, but really start working on workforce. We notice that 56% of our workforce in Clark County leaves Clark County every day to work outside our community. So this is a game-changing tool for us, for our employers to really market to our students. What’s here and how they can understand on how to get involved and really stay in Springfield and make Springfield better.

Mason Pashia: That’s wonderful. And so are you all doing the work of, uh, trying to kind of vet workforce needs from your community through partnerships, local businesses and helping to proliferate that? School districts.

Kaitlyn Tyler: So, yeah, us and our partners do work a lot in workforce. I am kind of the liaison between the schools and our employers, so we do a lot of like job job and job readiness task force. We do BRNE calls, hits, calls, all of those things to make sure that. Not only our business community has what they need, but our education system has what they need. And then we can use that to talk to the two. So it’s a really great, we have a great group here at the Greater Springfield Partnership. And then outside of just us, we have other partners in our community that we’re really working to make sure our workforce needs are getting met.

Mason Pashia: That’s really great. So I, I’m sure this will come up somewhere in this next story, but, uh, Kaitlyn, do you all play a role at all in. Sort of both preparing readiness at the level of the employer and the schools for the, the merging of those two worlds.

Kaitlyn Tyler: We absolutely do. So there’s lots of things coming. Hopefully soon. There we’re working on possibly an educator workforce academy to help our teachers understand business, but business also understand education. Again, merging those two worlds and having a better understanding of. What our community needs.

Real-World Learning and Internships

Kaitlyn Tyler: But we even run an internship program right now with our high school students. So again, merging those two worlds, helping them understand here’s getting your foot in the door, even if it’s an experience that you’re like, Hey, this is not what I wanna do for the rest of my life. You gained experience. But using YouScience has given us the opportunity for our students to really sit down and understand their career path. And so hopefully we’re making those matches with employers that are more intentional instead of just going off their interests and saying, yeah, I think I wanna be a dentist. And then realizing you hate teeth, well probably not gonna work out so well for you. But with using YouScience, they’re able to look back at their aptitude, their interest, you know, look at those together and then make a better informed decision.

Mason Pashia: I was at the dentist this morning and I can confirm that I hate teeth. So

Kaitlyn Tyler: Me too.

Mason Pashia: that that, yeah. So, uh, one more question on that. What. I, I, this may be fall somewhere between you and Peter, but what does the, what does that information actually look like? So a student has taken on this experience, they have these aptitudes or they’ve expressed these interests and they come back and they’re like, oh, I tried this thing. I’m not actually that interested in it anymore. Like, how, how does that get indicated for future use or what does that look like?

Kaitlyn Tyler: We really get that one-on-one experience, and that is something moving forward that we are working on is getting YouScience navigators to all of our schools. So our students at eighth grade, 10th grade, and 12th grade have one-on-one. FaceTime with an adult to really look at these results. Because it’s one thing to take the test, it’s something completely different to understand what you’re taking and for parents to understand what that looks like too. So these are all things that we realized are necessary and that are in the works. But YouScience does a great job with some of the reports that students can really look at. Individually, teachers can look at holistically and say, okay, this whole class, this is what the top interest aptitude is for the class. So how do we do that? But then individually with students, okay, this is where you’re at. This is what you were thinking before you took this test. Let’s look at this together and understand your aptitude. What’s your talent? What skills do you need? What classes do you need to take to make this a reality and make sure that you’re on the right path moving forward.

Mason Pashia: So I, I guess to build on that beyond the aptitude test, say a student has an internship and comes back to debrief and is like , that actually is not the career that I’m interested in pursuing. Does that just change some answers in the interest inventory and second question is that internship like verified by you all in any way? And what does that look like?

Kaitlyn Tyler: So, I’m actually in charge of our internship program, so this is year number three for me on running it. It’s very, very exciting. But I sit down with every student. So they go through an application process, they come to a training day and they get full training from our local employers on many different things. And then they sit down with me and pick up to three employers that they want to interview with. So in that interview process, again, we’re using YouScience, we’re making sure we’re matching correctly. I check in with them frequently. Not only do I go check on them on their site, but I also send them emails. There’s also surveys, like they’re not left thankfully to their own devices on this. We’re really communicating with them, but I’m also communicating with the employer, how’s it going, what needs to change, all of those questions. And then at the end we have a wrap up again and I talk to them about, okay. What do you think? Is this something that you think, yeah, I wanna continue with this. A lot of these students are juniors. We get a few sophomores and a few seniors. But mainly it’s that junior class that really takes a hold of this program and really runs with it. And we talk about it. And if it’s something that you’re like, Hey, I decided I do not want to do this for the rest of my life, we go back to those results, we talk about it and we, you know, come up with a different plan. Hey, you’re at our career tech center, you did this internship with us and you don’t wanna do this. Okay. How do we pivot now to not only get rid of everything, ’cause you, that’s not what you wanna do as a learning experience, but how do you build upon that learning experience to maybe take a little bit of a different turn and make sure you’re headed in the right direction?

Mason Pashia: Yeah. That’s so important. Christina, you were sort of summoned as being one of the, the workforce people that come in and help come in for the training day. It sounds like you maybe were a partner already with this, the Greater Springfield Partnership Group, and then they got YouScience, and then you all were sort of a part of this, but walk me through a little bit about the origin story and what it looks like to be at training day.

Christina Walters: So it actually, I connected with the Springfield partnership because of internships. Yeah, so it was, and I think it was right at the start of the Magnify program. So I wasn’t super familiar with it, thought it was neat. But everybody always has a new toy, right? So the best new thing. And so I was like, okay, great. Well I have a history of nonprofit as well, so we would always have tons of volunteers. We did soft skills in the school, so I was kind of familiar on both sides of things that work. And I will say the Magnify program has been the best students I’ve ever had. And I was leery about high school kids. But out of all of the college students, all of the adults that we’ve even had through other programs the high school kids are crazy impressive. And let me tell you what I mean by this. So we were small business building. Now we’re trying to build into a corporation. So there was, you know, a lot of foundations, but then we were breaking out into departments. So we were taking students from all different types of career paths. Uh, because there were cer, you know, different things if they wanted sales, we have that. We have customer service, we have analytics. There were so many different things. So the first year I decided we needed to do an auditing department. We track a lot of freight and our competitors, were the only ones in the US that does what we do. Our competitors are overseas, so our, our competition and our marketing is quality because we will never compete on price ever. So as we grew bigger, I realized I needed a department to run this and we didn’t know what to do. So we were like, okay, let’s bring in four interns and create this. And we did. And that has grown into a full-time position. So second year we had some come back, expanded different things. We also had a student from the Magnify program that decided to return as a college student. So we brought him in. He did some analytics for us, and I’m not exaggerating one bit. We were able to start invoicing one of our clients, $15,000 more a month because he could pull all the data that showed it and it wasn’t even a, Hey, we’ll get back with you. It was, here’s what we’re doing based on this data. And they said, okay, add four more people. So I’ve never had that with even a staff member yet, you know, so it was highly impressive with the students. And so, yeah, like this year we’re, we’re gonna, we’ve had three of them that stayed long term. They’re still with us. We have ones that come back every summer. We’ll bring on probably four or five this year. Some will do learn some of the dispatching, people that wanna go in logistics or we also like to get. Diesel mechanics, believe it or not, there’s quite a few around here that wanna do that. So this lets them understand the breakdown side of it in a customer service realm that they probably wouldn’t get any other place. And we’re gonna do some, we’re gonna create a sales department and things like that, and we’re gonna utilize these students to do some of that. So excited to see what.

Mason Pashia: Talk about real-world learning. That’s great. I am curious, is there, a career academy for logistics and like supply chain type things? Or is this, are, are you kind of replacing that with this amazing opportunity and to be actually be in the, in the work?

Jamison Truebenbach: So I can speak just from the local area schools, there isn’t a logistics program. So what Christina is offering our students as far as the wide array of opportunities that are not presented at a career center or at a high school that has career tech programming is exceptional because it doesn’t exist anywhere else. That is their option, is what she’s providing. If, if someone wants logistics, now there may be a few other businesses that do some logistics, but probably not as in depth and as thorough and as hands-on as as you would get in Christina’s business.

Mason Pashia: Between the three of you, Kaitlyn, Christina, and Jamison, where is the like ongoing touchpoint with the student about the internship experience? Like offering feedback or like trying to do things in real time? Just trying to help our listeners kind of grasp the actual inner workings of these internships.

Jamison Truebenbach: Our students, our seniors have to do 250 hours of a capstone experience, which is an internship or job placement or research. Just depends on the kiddo and what they wanna do and what their YouScience results and their interests and really push them towards. And so for our students in Capstone their, their follow up and communication is they have advisors, two of them, they make two site visits a semester. To the workplace and they have a professional evaluation from their employer twice a year. First semester and second semester. And then they have to present their presentation. We’re doing it a bit differently this year. We’re doing it more as a poster presentation open to the public, which would include the employers. It would include the parents. We’re inviting the juniors from the, to be prepared for next. The next year so they can kind of see what that looks like and learn. And so that’s kind of how we track and keep up with what we’re doing. But there is a constant communication with those employers and students. They come to the school once a week, the students do, to check in with their advisors to ensure that things are going smoothly. They have to log their hours, they have questions throughout.

Mason Pashia: Did you start your Capstone program before you had YouScience?

Jamison Truebenbach: Yes, we started our capstone program with our first class of seniors. We’ve only been inception for 14 years. We’re a seven through 12 ag bioscience STEM school. And so, we started with 59th graders in 2000 thir in the fall of 2013. And so our first class of seniors is when we started our capstone experience.

Mason Pashia: Then I think a, a fair number of our listeners have something similar, whether it be like a graduation requirement, a seal, a capstone experience. How has YouScience like supercharged, that capstone experience,

Jamison Truebenbach: yeah, absolutely. So our guidance counselor starting the freshman year, she meets with every student. So we have about 450 students or so in the high school. And so she meets with every kid before Christmas break. That is a goal of her. She’s a one man show. So she meets with every kid, and so she looks at what their eighth grade results were with them and really talks through those. And what they kind of seeing themselves doing so that she can help lead them into clubs and organizations after. Kind of follow in those tracks. And then every year on that continues, and then their junior year, first semester we, they go through and do the second half of the YouScience survey. And so they go over those results in advisory and then they go, which is a small group setting about 18 kids. And then they go over it with her as they’re starting to talk about the magnify program or they’re talking about. Potential placements for their capstone or applying for colleges. And what do we wanna go to the career center at some point for the one year programs? And the kids that are interested in the career center as sophomores, we start talking to them about YouScience. We might even encourage them to take it before their junior year. ‘

it is a requirement. It is something that we, we expect every kid to do, and it, the hounding from me until it’s done is, is excessive because it’s important and I think it’s, valued so much in our community. We have parents now that are starting to ask Hey, when are you giving that assessment? So now I’ve sent out reminds that are telling parents, Hey, this is when they’re going to take this. And so the word is on the street that it exists in our community. And so it’s important that we are doing it just and meeting with kids and encouraging them to review those results regularly.

Mason Pashia: Do you ever have parents ask to take the assessments?

Jamison Truebenbach: I have had a handful. And so I, I, I tell ’em how they can do like the demo account kind of stuff, and so yeah, I took it when it first came out and I’m like, oh, man. Okay. Those were things like when I was deciding about career opportunities, I’m like, okay, I could have seen myself going in that path for sure.

Mason Pashia: Mm-hmm. No, that’s fun. If, if you’re not watching this, you’re missing Pete, smiling huge through all of the, all of this. So just, just for the listener, that’s a,

Peter Van Mondfrans: It’s pretty unique. Mason, if you don’t mind me interjecting a quick comment. You know what, one of the things that’s so impressive about what I’m hearing from all three of these amazing people is we have strategic alignment and consensus about how to approach this workforce challenge. And that’s really hard to achieve and it’s kind of the vision for how to do this the right way is getting education and industry. And chambers of commerce and, and people in the ecosystem aligned,

Kaitlyn Tyler: Mm-hmm.

Peter Van Mondfrans: right? So that they’re looking at the same things, they’re using the same tools. And the beauty of that is your metrics are also aligned. And then, uh, your ability to have a good succession plan for what you’re doing. ’cause a lot of programs die because people come and go, but it it, when there’s this kind of consensus and alignment the program lives on and just gets better and better and better. So. I’m just, I congratulate all three, uh, Kaitlyn, Christina, and Jamison on what you’re doing. It’s just incredible.

Mason Pashia: Yeah, it’s, it’s really awesome work. I’m, I’m also wondering, Christina, is there an opportunity in this for you to connect with other local businesses through all of this? Searching and maybe through the Springfield partnership, uh, thing as well. Like, I totally see this as a play to get into schools and interfacing with, uh, high school students, but I also think that there’s a unique way it brings the community together around this like common workforce or, uh, I don’t know for lack of a better word, like rallying cry of just like we need to keep people around, get them jobs. Have you seen any of that or am I making that up?

Christina Walters: Yeah, so we actually have a workforce development task force that we all participate in. The community’s really good about that. We talk about YouScience as well. And then one thing, \ my daughter is a freshman now, so last year we started, I started asking. When is she getting the YouScience test? When is she getting that? And it was to the point they thought I worked with the city because I kept asking. But now she’s a freshman and she was just messaging me last week because they’re wanting to do career paths. And she was like, I don’t know what I wanna do. I said, tell ’em to pull your YouScience then, you know. So then she went back to the teacher like, well I need you to pull this from last year because I, there’s some options. ’cause she wants to be like an esthetician, but she knows she’s not gonna make money on it. And she flat out said that, she said, I’m not, if groceries keep rising, I’m not gonna be able to afford to take care of myself. So what else can I do then? Because I’d love to do this, but that’s not gonna pay my bills. Which is phenomenal for a 15-year-old. But then it turned into her stressing about her career. But that’s what I said, pull the use science, you know? And then she asked, can I do it again? And you know, we were actually just talking about it this morning too, so.

Mason Pashia: I love it. It’s, it is in, it’s in the water there.

Christina Walters: Yes.

Mason Pashia: Um, Pete, I wanna ask you a little bit about. The what happens after. So I think in our conversation earlier we were talking a little bit about what happens when, like a student graduates, what happens with their YouScience record, what’s like the long-term vision for this? Uh, so could you give us a couple details about how you see YouScience supporting students after high school?

Peter Van Mondfrans: Yeah, I, I love that question because. As I mentioned earlier, the, the learning your why, it can be an iterative and evolutionary kind of process. So, and we recognize that, you know, and, and we want to make sure that our users have access to their results beyond high school graduation or college graduation. So each user has 10 years access, uh, to the platform and, uh, you know, that includes being able to take our interest inventory. Every year because interests do change, they evolve like our why, right? The more exposure we get to opportunities, the more in our interests fluctuate and change. And so we, we encourage our users to take it with them, use it as a tool, a life tool, and, and revisit it frequently because there’s a couple of reasons to do that. Number one is that inventory assessment, but or interest, uh, in inventory. But the other piece. That, that we like to emphasize, but, and maybe we don’t do it enough, is the affirming language that is in our assessment results that reminds you. You have talent that gives you language around what your abilities are in social work and education settings, things that are easy for you and things that might be difficult for you, but we never tell someone You’re good at this and you’re bad at that. It’s, these are your strengths and let’s build on those. Things that come easy to you are things you should embrace and, and realize that that’s, uh, that’s something to pay attention to. So we want people to come back to it, Mason, and, and they have 10 years access to do that. So it continues on. The journey continues, right?

Mason Pashia: It totally does. We’ve been doing a lot of research in the last year or so on credentialing wallets, LER, like learner employment records, all that kind of stuff. Do you all view YouScience as a valuable tool in that conversation as well? Or, or do you fund, like really think about it through the lens of awareness and putting some of those first stepping stones in place.

Peter Van Mondfrans: The environment that we’re working in, in the workforce is shifting towards skills-based hiring in a lot of ways. You know, a lot of companies are realizing, we just need you to be able to do the job, and we need people who are competent and capable. And so giving students a means of, of demonstrating that. Being able to come to the table with their credentials, with their experiences, and even with language from their aptitude assessment results. It talks about what their abilities are is is an important part of that process.

So students can go into the platform, they can pull their certifications very easily, and those can be put into an LER, uh, tho, that’s one approach. Other things, of course, their assessment results, they, they have a four year plan that they work on in the platform as well. That includes a resume builder, which is obviously a very important part of that. But I see a day coming up, uh, where, you know, in, in that we are an iterative. Company that is investing in ongoing improvement and ongoing development. I see a day where we build something that ports either directly into an LER or creates one, like a skills wallet or a credential wallet right in the platform. So student can say, let me show you how good I am. Uh, they can come to, you know, Christina and say, I want, I want an internship. With you and let me show you why you should consider me over other applicants,

Mason Pashia: Two things I want to just kind of share that I heard that. Maybe weren’t iterated, but they’re more implied. One thing that I think is really unique about this and just the, the, the structure that the three of you and Pete kind of outlined is that there’s so many amazing opportunities for mentorship along the way in this kind of process be between having advisory at the school level, having the convers, the ongoing conversations at the greater Springfield partnership, and then going all the way up. Uh, in, into Christina’s company and being able to talk with people all the time. There’s just so many ways to meet people that will know people and really build that social capital pool regardless of whether or not logistics is this kid’s future. So I, I think that that’s just kind of implied in such a huge asset in this I. Real world learning space. And then the other one I do think we touched on a number of times, but just really keeping these things iterative. And the reason I chose that quote at the beginning is I do think so often we, we put kids on a pathway and expect that the, that it’s a line segment of a pathway. That it’s from a journey from A to B and success is getting to be when really success is. Choosing an A a lot of the time and most of your life is OnRamps and off ramps and how do you figure out, how do you, we have a story of your own life. And YouScience seems really prime to do that and you all are creating programs that are very poised to do that. So, that’s super awesome.

Jamison Truebenbach: If you’re, if, if you use the language and you talk about YouScience correctly, students are given terminology based on their results to write the most effective cover letter and resume that will make them beyond sellable to an employer. I think that that’s, that’s the piece for me. I mean, sure the results are great and they take those results, but to be able to write a le, a cover letter and a resume that makes them sellable. More so than those around them is what is important and I value significantly is because all too often you tell a kid to write a cover letter and a resume, and they’re like, with what? And the what is you’re using that terminology that you’re given from your results that makes you so sellable and industry. My brother actually hosts a couple of our interns every so often at, at a greater Ohio Eye, surgeons in Springfield, and he talks about the language that is used in their, in their resumes and cover letters. And he’s do you, is that like generic? Are you formulating that? I’m like, no, no. That is that student specific language. I mean, that is their language and that is. Who this kid is as a, as a person, as a learner, as an employee. And the language correlates so much with even how they learn. And so if it’s a job that they have to learn a new skill, you can look at that language that they’re given about how they are and know how you have to work with that kid or that adult. And so I think it makes them very, very sellable in a employability setting.

Kaitlyn Tyler: I think going along with that, it also gives kids self-confidence and not just student, kids, students, adult learners, whoever it is, it gives them the confidence to say I can do this. I think a lot of times students don’t see themselves that way or they, we talk about resumes at training day and they’re like, well, I don’t do anything. I. Pull your, your YouScience results. Let’s talk about what you can do. Let’s use that language and just the confidence shift that you see in these students because of YouScience is just game changing. And they can go to an employer, they can go to a community member, they can go to a career fair and have that confidence because they know what they’re talking about and they have the language to use to use it.

Mason Pashia: Awesome.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Mason Pashia: All right, Jamison, Christina, Kaitlyn, Pete, thank you so much for joining me today,

Jamison Truebenbach: Thank you so much for having us.

Kaitlyn Tyler: Thank you.

Mason Pashia: And thank you to all of you for listening to the Getting Smart Podcast. Uh, keep learning and keep innovating for equity.

Kaitlyn Tyler

Kaitlyn Tyler is the Talent and Education Coordinator. Kaitlyn is a graduate of Shawnee High school c/o ’09 and a resident of Springfield. Kaitlyn earned her associates degree in early childhood education from Clark State College and her bachelor’s degree in child and youth studies from The Ohio State University in 2022. Kaitlyn has a passion for helping students discover their strengths, aptitudes, interests, and talents. She is excited to help students learn how these areas translate into the workforce and help guide their career path as well. Kaitlyn desires to see the students in Clark County grow and thrive within the community.

Jamison Truebenbach

Jamison Truebenbach is Global Impact’s Chief Academic Officer. She received a B.A. in Education from Wilmington College, a Master of Education with a concentration in Special Education from Wright State University, a Master of Educational Leadership and her Ohio Principals License from Antioch Midwest. She has been with Global Impact since the origination. Prior to coming to Global Impact STEM Academy Mrs. Truebenbach taught at Southeastern High School for six years and Northeastern High School for three years.

Peter Van Mondfran

Peter Van Mondfran is the Director of Workforce Development at YouScience and a member of 47G with more than 25 years of management and leadership experience. He specializes in driving exceptional outcomes across workforce development, strategic partnerships, operations management, and revenue growth. He excels at building meaningful relationships with key decision-makers, aligning value propositions with client needs, and delivering measurable results.

Peter’s track record includes consistently building top-line revenue, streamlining operational efficiencies, retaining clients, and enhancing product offerings to solve complex client challenges. Whether it’s forging partnerships, managing large-scale projects, or navigating market trends, he brings a results-driven approach that delivers sustainable impact.

Christina Walters

Christina Walters is the CEO of Night Dispatch, Executive Director at Springfield Peace Center and the BNI Global Chapter Success Coach in the Dayton Region.

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