Midcoast businesses and individuals having real conversations with future leaders | Column
This week is a direct reflection of my recent activities, as I have been meeting with students about paid internships and I have been interviewing candidates for statehouse offices. They are very different conversations, but both relevant for the businesses in our region.
Let’s start with the students, as “I believe that children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way” (cite your sources: Whitney Houston). But seriously, our students are literally our future. We are amidst the greatest generational employee shift of this century, and potentially of the last 45 years. We haven’t seen this amount of new employee onboarding since the mid-1970s/early ’80s when many baby boomer kids turned working age and flooded the economy with troves of new workers. The tail end of those boomer workers are retiring after four-plus decades of a career, and for the last eight years, we’ve been replacing employees with great institutional knowledge, with those who need training to get up to that same level of understanding.
Our chamber has been helping these transitions through our ChamberWorks 2030 workforce programs which began in 2021. That has evolved into our current partnership with United Way of Mid Coast Maine, where together we recruit students to engage with local businesses through internships, and other programming. The umbrella for this work is called Connecting To Tomorrow, and it’s now in its third year.
The program is essentially recruiting businesses to be internship host sites and then connecting students from Morse, Brunswick, Richmond, and Mt. Ararat high schools with 20-40-hour paid internships in the industries they want to explore. Additionally, the United Way and I go into the classrooms at least twice per school year to get the students excited and educated about the program, and those presentations have been happening for a couple of weeks now.
The students we meet are incredible, engaged, and nervously excited to pursue these opportunities. Sure, getting paid from the grant is nice, but they truly want the experiences. When we take questions from them, it becomes evident why they want these experiences (and this is where you come in) — because they don’t have the same advantages we did.
When I was their age, I routinely had to call friends’ houses and talk to their parents before talking to my friends. These students don’t have that opportunity, so they are worse at cold calling and speaking to strangers.
Advertisement
When I was their age, everything was in-person, so you learned to read body language. You had in-person moments of connection outside the confines of online screen — they have less and less of that.
When I was their age, if I wanted to date, I’d have to have an awkward conversation — I couldn’t send a text message to avoid the messy stuff. No wonder they struggle with any awkward conversations now.
Which is all to say, beyond what they will learn about a specific industry, these internships also give essential life skill opportunities. Negotiating your work schedule; communicating about being late; asking questions when you are unsure; expectation setting so the employer knows what you are good at, and what you may need help with. All of these are essential workplace skills, that these students haven’t dealt with. Please, take a moment to consider being an internship host site, so that together we can shape these students into the leaders of tomorrow (e-mail [email protected]).
Speaking of leaders, I am nearly halfway through the 23 interviews that I am trying to complete by Friday, Oct. 23, with the candidates for the statehouse who represent all, or even a portion, of our 16-community chamber region. These 10-12-minute videos give you a great flavor of the candidates and their views. As an update: All confirmed videos will be released on Oct. 23 or earlier. You will find those links on our chamber social media channels, including Facebook, and on our chamber website.
The big takeaway thus far is this: These are normal citizens who strive to do their best. Yet the only way they can do their best is to hear from you, their constituents.
Maine is a part-time legislature, and these candidates run for office out of a sense of service, but also out of the sense that they can help create the solutions. I have spoken about a variety of needs in these interviews thus far, with heating oil, housing, and overall affordability being the most frequent topics. However, each legislator has a topic or two beyond that which they are passionate and knowledgeable about too.
Advertisement
Bottom line: these candidates are extremely approachable — so approach them. Push back if you disagree — they love to talk through it. A great example was in a data privacy conversation I had with one legislator which is a topic likely to come up again. The candidate mentioned how the issue gets confused and citizens don’t know what the bill will do, and I echoed that from a business leader standpoint. We talked about creating a simple T-bar to help communicate the issue, where on one side it says “Here’s what you can do now online,” and on the other side, “Here’s what you can do if the bill passes.” We identified the problem, talked about the issue, and came up with a solution — that’s how this is supposed to work!
So don’t get tied to partisan bickering — ain’t nobody got time for that. Regardless of their party, on Nov. 4 we will have a slate of legislators who are there to represent you.
So, if they come to your door before Election Day, talk to them, or shoot them a message. Because at the end of the day, they want to do what’s right, regardless of party. At the very least, watch our videos to get a good sense of them — I think you will be impressed with their insights.
Cory King is executive director of the Bath-Brunswick-Topsham Regional Chamber of Commerce.
**The Times Record Sustaining Sponsor
**We believe a community must be informed to thrive. bowdoin.edu
Copy the Story Link
Tagged: business, Times Record, Times Record Community
