Golden Path Solutions Newsletter – October 2025

Oct 10, 2025 | Blog, News

We’re excited to connect with you through our October 2025 newsletter. We’re in full swing with the 2025-2026 school year underway, and we have numerous events, connections, partnerships, and activities to share and keep you informed of. We’re so grateful that you’re part of the Golden Path community, and we look forward to sharing our updates with you.

Read on for the latest news!

Governor’s Workforce Summit a success

Golden Path was honored to attend the first North Dakota Governor’s Workforce Summit, held Oct. 2 in Bismarck. Hosted by the North Dakota Department of Commerce, the event welcomed nearly 100 business leaders, postsecondary administrators, career and technical education (CTE) center directors, government officials, and members of the North Dakota Workforce Development Council. We discussed workforce strategies, data trends, various programs hosted by state agencies, and, of course, the importance of connecting with youth for workforce development.

It was rewarding to see how many in attendance either work directly with Compass or support the work that we do. Whether we’re working at the state or local community level, alignment is critical when it comes to complex issues like workforce. We’re thrilled that Compass can be one tool in the toolbox to help.

Career fairs, classroom speaking engagements, and more in full swing

The school year is underway, and with that come exciting events like career fairs, expos, competitions, classroom visits, and speaking engagements. You can find a lot of these events in Compass.

Compass events include everything from small, local happenings to larger, industry-focused events, like the upcoming 2025 BioScience Summit, Oct. 15-16 in Fargo (see brief below for more information).

School professionals, you can create events in Compass and select the employers you’d like to notify and/or include.

Employers, these larger upcoming events are a fantastic way to meet students, share about your company, and highlight your opportunities.  Here are a few:

We encourage employers to also create or update their Compass employer profile before an event, watch for Golden Path emails with events details, use our customizable marketing templates to create event handouts (available to Golden Path employer members), and offer work-based learning experiences that students can follow up with after the event. Reach out to learn more about best practices, or read this helpful blog post.

New CTE centers open doors to student-employer connections

The newly opened Grand Forks Public Schools Career Impact Academy (CIA) and the NDSCS Career Innovation Center (CIC) in Fargo are expanding opportunities for high school students. These state-of-the-art centers enable students to experience more hands-on and career-specific classes, connect with regional employers, explore future career options, and even earn college credit toward those careers.

The centers also partner with regional postsecondary schools for dual-credit and concurrent enrollment classes, introduce students to high-tech equipment, and are made possible by the support of local organizations and businesses. The CIA and CIC join a group of about a dozen thriving CTE centers in communities across the region, including Watford City, Dickinson, Wahpeton, Moorhead, and Devils Lake (which recently celebrated the opening of its new Ag Center wing at its Lake Area Career and Technical Center).

Read about these two new centers in our recent feature story, including conversations with Dr. Denise Jonas with the Fargo CIC and Eric Ripley with the Grand Forks CIA.

Upcoming College Smart webinar for parents features Golden Path as guest

Parents and their high schoolers are invited to join Ryan Keel, founder of College Smart, for a free, one-hour webinar.

“Tools to Pay for College: The FAFSA, Sponsorships, and More” will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 1, or 4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 9.

In this engaging and information-packed session, attendees will gain a clear understanding of the types of resources available to help families with the expense of college, including what steps they can take now.

Topics include:

  • The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) – What you need to know before completing the application, the types of aid families could receive, and what to expect in the process
  • Scholarships – What types are available and how to apply
  • Sponsorships – How students can connect with employers to receive full- or partial-tuition reimbursement in exchange for a signed agreement to work for the company following postsecondary graduation
  • Additional tools to consider

Patrick will serve as a webinar guest, highlighting the availability of Sponsorships in Compass. He will also cover how students can connect with employers in Compass for everything from work-based learning to careers, many of which include tuition help.

Register today and save your spot for this essential webinar.

Supporting Moorhead Area Public Schools and its Program of Study initiative

We recently held a Compass training for about 30 school professionals from Moorhead Area Public Schools (MAPS). We covered general instruction of Compass’ many features, as well as the new features we created for MAPS students to enroll in and track progress with their Program of Study.

MAPS’ Program of Study initiative can be thought of as a mini-major in high school, where students on a specific track are guided through what classes are required, recommended electives, related recommended experiences, and how to prepare for what’s next after graduation. Programs of Study can be related to a specific trade, an industry track such as business, or even general studies.

We’re fine-tuning our new features in Compass to help support this new initiative at Moorhead and then we’ll make this functionality available to all schools. Thanks to Tom Dryburgh & Dr. Jeremy Larson with the Moorhead High School Career Academy for facilitating the partnership and setting up the training.

Watch for more information on this new Compass functionality.

Welding WBL leads to career, inspires future students

When Colton Brown, a 2023 Kindred (ND) High School graduate, first brought his love of welding to his school counselor during his sophomore year, she immediately set out in search of opportunities.

“We started having conversations about his interests and where he saw himself in four years,” says Leslie Lemke, counselor at Kindred High School. “It was simple to him. He wanted to weld. We talked about how he could reach his goal, and we came up with a plan. I told him I would do everything I could to find him a work-based learning experience.”

She did just that. Lemke found him an opportunity to work as a welder at Weisgram Metal Fab Inc. in West Fargo, ND, for nearly his entire senior year.

That experience provided him with tremendous hands-on experience, solidified his desire for a career in welding, and provided Weisgram the opportunity to train a future employee. Brown was hired full-time after graduation and still works there today as a welder on the night shift, primarily welding parts for John Deere and Grouser Products.

“I realized I wanted to stick with welding as a career really early on,” Brown says. “My job now isn’t that much different than what I was already doing in my WBL.”

Read Brown’s whole story about how work-based learning benefits both students and employers.

Biosciences Summit includes career fair to connect with students

The Greater Fargo Moorhead Economic Development Corp.’s 2025 BioScience Summit, Oct. 15-16 in Fargo, includes a Wednesday career fair for employers to connect with students about their careers and opportunities. Golden Path Solutions will also be at the summit to help bridge connections, including through Compass.

Industry-specific events like this help students explore fields they are already interested in, discover new-to-them industries, or even learn about careers that are critical for the future growth of a community.

While the focus of the summit is supporting new regional companies, students are invited to attend sessions as well. Public and private high schools from the region have been invited.

We encourage all employers to update their Compass information prior to events like this so students (and school professionals) can learn more when they get back to school.

Supporting college students with opportunities through Compass

We recently shared information with our employers about how we’re partnering with postsecondary institutions and how Compass complements other systems like Handshake, Indeed, LinkedIn, and more.

For example, we’re partnering with Bismarck State College to foster more regional internships for students pursuing university studies (everything from marketing to accounting to management) as well as specific programs like auto/diesel technician and heavy equipment operator.

If you are an employer in one of these industries and want to connect with college students, we recommend creating an internship in Compass. If you already have a work-based learning experience for high school students in Compass, simply check a box to make it also available for college students. We can also connect you with postsecondary school staff to learn about their existing internship programs and the systems they use, such as Handshake.

Thank you to our Golden Path partners

We’re incredibly thankful for the partnerships we’re building through organizations, schools, and communities.

From working with Jackie Buboltz at the Detroit Lakes (MN) Regional Chamber of Commerce to Dr. Wayne Heckaman at the Bakken Area Skills Center in Watford City, ND, and Kenzi Brown at the Williston (ND) Basin Career & Technical Education Center, these partnerships are key to supporting future workforce development and student career exploration.

We want to give a specific shout-out to Reva Kautz with the North Dakota Petroleum Council (NDPC) who helped organize our panel discussion during the recent NDPC Annual Meeting in Watford City.

We look forward to further developing these partnerships and more as we continue our work!

Let us know about your events

If you have an event that you want us to include in our newsletter, please send us a note at info@goldenpath.net. If you are an employer and want to publish your event to schools and students, remember that you can do that through Compass. If you’re an educator wanting to invite employers to a school event (like a career fair or expo), you can do that in Compass too, choosing the employers you invite by industry, name, career cluster, or distance from you.

Important dates

Connect with us

Keep up with the latest opportunities and information here:

More information

Contact Patrick for more information or to connect about opportunities with Golden Path Solutions.

Categories: Blog | News
Tags: Compass | Employers | students | WBL | workforce