The Carbon Chamber and Economic Development Corporation continued its work to create a bridge between education and business in the area during February’s meeting.

Educators and employers of the area came together to tackle the problem of finding and keeping valuable employees.“There is a disconnect between people coming in for jobs and the skills they need,” according toRobert Mauro.Mauro has extensive experience in education, having served as administrative director of Carbon Career & Technical Institute, superintendent of the Panther Valley School District, and principal at  Lehigh County and the Lehigh Career and Technical Institute.Kathy Henderson, director of economic development, agreed with Mauro, saying “soft skills are missing across the state.”“Soft skills” have been defined by the group as work ethic, interpersonal or communication skills, and were the highest rated in a survey conducted at January’s partnership meeting.“We are hoping to bring schools and business together. There’s a gap there and we are trying to find it and fix it,” Henderson said.“There is no question there is a skills gap, both in technical and academic. As kids go through public schools, there’s a lack of engagement,” Mauro said.“If they show up with a good attitude, we can teach them what they need to learn,” said Guy Seifert of Structural Metal Fabricators in Palmerton.The chamber created the Business/Education Partnership with a main goal of building and maintaining connections to align education, economic development and workforce development to meet employers’ needs.“Testing and state mandates put extra stress on educators and administration,” Mauro said. “Career education and workforce standard are supposed to be a part of every curriculum, but they tend to get overlooked because of standardized testing.”Jim Thorpe Superintendent Brian J. Gasper and Panther Valley Superintendent Dennis R. Kergick agreed with Mauro and highlighted their efforts to energize the future workforce. Both districts work to create awareness for employment in the area.Panther Valley hosts an annual job fair while Jim Thorpe has created an education night for students.Seifertidentifies the disconnect between education and employment as a simple case of being uninformed about work opportunities the county has to offer.“The students aren’t technical oriented. They are all university-driven. Counselors from the high schools have never contacted me. The high school level is where there is a big disconnect.”Kergick said the challenge is in the standardized assessments from the state.“They make it so all kids focus on going to college. We are starting to rebuild the technical aspects.”Seifert said, “Government intervention is not a good thing in this area. I’d open my shop up to any educator in the area to see what’s going on.”Mauro said, “This is not a wasteland in terms of education and business. There are some thing we can do.”Gary Wentz of Career Link illustrated some of the underused resources the organization has to offer to the current and future workforce.“There is funding to assist employers with the cost of training,” he said. “If you’re not utilizing us, you are missing out on a great local resource,” he told the employers in attendance. “Educators are not utilizing the state websites and are missing out on a lot of relevant up-to-date information.”Wentz said there is help for financing employee training, “There are grants. They are just held up because of the budget.”The partnership received a grant composed by Mauro to help create job shadowing programs, internships, career fairs and field trips to see just how companies work. The partnership will host another meeting in March where Mauro hopes to see even more fresh faces and new ideas to help generate interest and awareness for employment in the county.