Welcome back from what was hopefully a relaxing holiday season spent with family and friends. This time of year, it’s always fun to look back and reflect on 2025 and the first half of the school year, what went well, where there are opportunities to better support our mission, and what is coming up in 2026.
Before we get into the details, we want to first say thank you to all of you for your partnership and support. The Golden Path community is amazing and we’re grateful for all of your work connecting schools, students, and employers for the future!
2025: A year of growth and expansion for the Compass community
We continue to be amazed at the growth of the Golden Path ecosystem. New partnerships and opportunities continue to stretch and enhance our mission of connecting students, schools, employers, and communities.
Here are some of the latest stats in Compass:
- More than 26,000 students with active profiles
- Nearly 700 participating employers
- More than 120 Career Profiles
- Nearly 300 work-based learning opportunities
- More than 50 new schools in Minnesota and South Dakota invited to Compass
- Cherokee County School District in South Carolina joins Golden Path Solutions as the first district outside the Midwest
- Seven postsecondary institutions in Compass, with a recent grant announced that will grow that number in North Dakota
Golden Path launched new partnerships with several chambers of commerce and economic development organizations to help with local outreach. We’ve added new features and functionality to Compass to support both career exploration and work-based learning processes, including tracking programs of study, managing job shadows, helping with event calendars and management, and more. Golden Path also recently announced a new relationship with the North Dakota University System (NDUS), which we hope can be replicated with other states. Finally, we’ve been sharing a variety of spotlight stories that highlight why this work is so important and how it’s affecting lives and careers.
NDUS grant next steps: Listening to campuses, integrating systems, and supporting students
We’re looking forward to providing the entire NDUS with access to Compass thanks to the recent grant from the Midwest Higher Education Compact (MHEC).
The grant fosters two key opportunities:
- Expanding the Compass footprint to the 11 NDUS institutions and their students
- Allowing North Dakota high school students’ Compass profiles and employer connections to follow them into postsecondary school
Golden Path is already exploring Compass feature additions and updates, as well as integration and collaboration points for systems that some of the colleges already use, such as Handshake. We are excited to complement those systems and further support employer-student connections.
We will be meeting with the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction (NDDPI), North Dakota Career and Technical Education (NDCTE), North Dakota Information Technology (NDIT), and NDUS to build a smooth and supportive process for the institutions, students, and employers in Compass. Golden Path will also hold listening sessions across the state with higher-ed partners to identify their needs, how we can meet those needs, and the current systems they want to integrate with.
Golden Path is also working with the North Dakota Tribal College System and NDUS to hopefully bring the five colleges into Compass as well.
We want to ensure that Compass supports students during their transition from K-12 to postsecondary, while also providing employers with additional resources to connect during that journey.
Read the press release for more information.
Golden Path and FMWF Chamber partner for workforce development
Golden Path is partnering with the Fargo Moorhead West Fargo Chamber of Commerce in Fargo to drive future workforce in the region. The two organizations will work together on several initiatives to help build connections between employers and high school students through Compass.
The Chamber is the voice of business in and for the metro area. With more than 2,100 private, public, and non-profit member firms representing more than 109,000 people, it’s the largest local chamber in North Dakota and Minnesota.
Both organizations are excited to work together to engage employers within Compass to highlight their companies, careers, and work-based learning experiences – all designed to help employers find their future talent while students also access meaningful career exploration tools. As part of the collaboration, Golden Path and the Chamber held a series of work-based learning (WBL) training webinars earlier this year.
Golden Path will also offer preferred membership pricing to current Chamber members, as well as hold informational sessions for Chamber members on how to get started, create work-based learning opportunities, and make the most of their memberships. We will also offer a work-based learning event this spring, helping our local schools accelerate their cooperative work experience (CWE) program by creating more opportunities for students in Compass.
Observations from the recent ACTE VISION conference in Nashville
Golden Path attended the ACTE CareerTech VISION 2025 conference in early December in Nashville, TN. Patrick met with school representatives from across the country, attended a variety of sessions on career exploration solutions and approaches, and supported some of our partners who presented or were running for ACTE leadership positions.
Key conference takeaways include:
- Career and technical education continues to build closer relationships with industry, ensuring that students are receiving relevant education for the future. Numerous presentations focused on deep collaboration between schools and local industry to help students learn the skills needed for success and how to build their network.
- There is a real focus on systematic, scalable ways of fostering collaboration between K-12 and postsecondary schools, particularly around data and outcomes. Many universities are partnering with their local school districts to share data on how to improve graduation rates, offer opportunities, and create faster paths to careers, but these efforts tend to be locally driven and not very scalable. We’ll be taking this into account with our work with NDUS.
- Soft skills continue to be a focus. How do students graduate with the problem-solving and communication skills that are important in nearly every career?
At the conference, Golden Path also supported NDCTE Strategic Projects Manager Dawn Ulmer in her election as ACTE Work-Based Learning Division Vice President, as well as Workforce Specialist Ann Pollert in her presentation about her mobile career exploration process in the Devils Lake, ND, region.
We’re excited to be part of this broad network and will be attending ACTE’s Work-Based Learning Conference 2026 April 29-May 1, in Providence, RI.
Watch for new features in Compass, including ongoing focus on usability
Upcoming new features in Compass include an option for schools to create events for employers, as well as the ability for employers to register directly in Compass and indicate what skills or careers they are seeking or promoting. This feature will allow students to match with employers through events, such as career fairs and guest speaking opportunities, helping those events be more productive and meaningful for both parties.
We are also building features to help employers discover how to optimize their Compass accounts for the most impact with students, both in terms of visibility and the ability to convey their industry and organization information. Watch for more information in future newsletters and the next issue of Compass Release Notes.
Expanding Compass’s features also increases its complexity, which is why we are always prioritizing usability. Upcoming student and educator feedback sessions will enable us to gather important insights into different areas of Compass. We are also creating an employer survey. (See the next news brief!) We want to be sure Compass meets your needs, but is also easy to use.
Please reach out if you would like to share your feedback.
Employers – we want your feedback on Compass
We’re conducting an employer feedback survey so we can better understand our employers’ needs and how we can better support them. If you are an employer, we’d love to hear from you.
The survey includes questions about what Compass features you use, how you are connecting with schools, what Golden Path services best support your workforce development, what features you’d like to see in Compass, and more.
The survey takes 10 minutes or less to complete. Take the survey now.
Thank you for your feedback!
Meet Alaina Vein, a future survey technician
Thanks to matching with a Career Profile in Compass, Alaina Vein of Fargo is studying to become a land survey technician – a career she didn’t even know existed before using Compass.
When the 2023 Fargo North High School graduate finished her first year of college, she realized her declared psychology major wasn’t the right career path for her. That’s when she turned to Compass for help.
She filled out her student profile, learned about her aptitude for careers in engineering, and matched to several careers based on her skills and interests. She immediately became curious about the Apex Engineering Survey Technician Career Profile.
The appeal of each day being a little different, working outside on new and interesting engineering projects, and the alignment of her high school experiences led her to enroll in the Land Surveying and Civil Engineering Technology program at North Dakota State College of Science in Wahpeton. She’s thrilled about her future.
“If it wasn’t for Compass, I wouldn’t be here,” Vein says about her first year at NDSCS. “I’m really glad I got the chance to use it and discover a career that fits me.”
Upcoming Chamber Workforce Forum to provide tools for solving workforce challenges
Registration is still open for the Fargo Moorhead West Fargo Chamber of Commerce’s Workforce Forum on Wednesday, Jan. 28, at the Armory Event Center in Moorhead.
“From Vision to Action” is a half-day event that provides employers with insights and tools to address workforce challenges and plan for their future. It features a keynote presentation by nationally recognized futurist Rebecca Ryan, local data-driven updates on key issues, and a skills-based hiring workshop. The forum is designed for human resources leaders, executives, educators, nonprofit professionals, and community decision makers.
Be sure to stop by the Golden Path table at the event. See you there!
New employers and Career Profiles added to Compass
Several employers joined Compass last month, representing a variety of industries, from residential construction to healthcare, food and beverage, pet care, and education. Some of these new employers include NDSU Office of Teaching and Learning, Dynamic Homes, ND Coffee Roastery – Bully Brew, SMP Health – St. Catherine, Red Hydrant Lounge and Suites, and the Devils Lake (ND) Chamber of Commerce.
Thank you to Sanford and Bobcat for renewing their Golden Path memberships!
New Career Profiles include the Project Manager and Engineer roles at the North Dakota Department of Transportation, and PN/LPN, Administrative and Coordination, and Therapy and Rehabilitation with SMP Health – St. Aloisius.
Watch for upcoming Career Profiles from Delta Constructors and Lund Oil.
Build connections at spring career fairs
Spring career fair season is right around the corner. Upcoming events include the Feb. 10 Capital Career Fair in Bismarck, ND, hosted by North Dakota Job Service, Bismarck State College, and United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck. The following universities are also hosting career fairs in February: North Dakota State University in Fargo, the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, and Valley City (ND) State University. NDSU hosts another fair in March.
Watch Compass and our newsletter event list for other opportunities.
Career fairs are excellent opportunities for employers to connect with students. We encourage employers to use our Employer Marketing Resources in Compass to help foster these connections. The resources are included with paid Golden Path employer memberships.
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
- Jan. 23: Community Venture Network Event, Lakeville, MN
- Jan. 28: FMWF Chamber’s Workforce Forum: From Vision to Action, Moorhead, MN
- Jan. 28: NDSU Spring Marketing & Sales Fair, Fargo
- Feb. 3: UND Spring 2026 STEM Industries Career Expo, Grand Forks
- Feb. 4: Building Your Future Workforce: Industry Partnership Forum, Grand Forks
- Feb. 4: UND Spring 2026 Career Expo, Grand Forks
- Feb. 4: NDSU Spring Career Expo, Fargo
- Feb. 10: 2026 Capital Career Fair, Bismarck
- Feb. 12: 2026 Valley City (ND) State University Career Expo, Valley City
- Feb. 24: GFMEDC Un-Annual Meeting, Fargo
- Feb. 25-26: T4 Summit, Bismarck
- March 25: NDSU Summer Jobs & Internships Fair, Fargo
- April 21: GrowND: Workforce Showcase, Bismarck
- Apr. 29-May 1: ACTE’s Work-Based Learning Conference 2026, Providence, RI
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More information
Contact us for more information or to get started with Golden Path Solutions and Compass.