Behavioral Health Associates has grown from roughly 125 employees to nearly 500, and the Carbon County Collaborative wanted to know how.

That question anchored the annual Human Services Priorities Breakfast held Friday at American Legion Post 314, where panelists from BHA, Lehigh Carbon Community College and the Pocono Counties Workforce Development Board addressed the theme: “Recruiting the Next Generation.” The Department of Labor and Industry ranks BHA as Carbon County’s largest employer for staff.

Lenny Ogozalek, of BHA, traced the organization’s expansion into 13 departments across 10 campuses to a culture built deliberately around family. Five of BHA’s nine senior administrators started in entry-level roles.

“We prioritize you, your family and your health,” Ogozalek said of their employees. “Those aren’t just words on a mission statement. If your family needs you, that’s where you need to be.”

BHA also offers tuition reimbursement, a Leadership Academy and career pathways that allow teachers to move into therapeutic roles and vice versa.

“You can start here with a high school diploma and leave with a Ph.D.,” Ogozalek said. The organization was recently recognized as a 2026 top workplace for work-life balance, employee well-being and professional development.

Joe Ferko, also of BHA, said word-of-mouth has driven most of the organization’s hiring.

“Sharing our experiences with our colleagues, our friends, our families — it’s so enticing due to the family-oriented mindset of the employees at BHA that we are able to recruit local professionals, especially young students who go away and get their education and return to the area,” Ferko said.

Sam Hellen, executive director of the Pocono Counties Workforce Development Area, framed the challenge in stark demographic terms. The region has an above-average share of residents 55 and older, a below-average share of adults ages 25 to 39 and a shrinking youth population.

“Every young person we have in the area matters,” Hellen said. “Today’s youth must be ready for tomorrow’s jobs. They need to be able to see a future for themselves here and not somewhere else.”

Local employers, he said, report frustration with career readiness, motivation and what the COVID-19 pandemic did to the entering workforce’s social norms. But he said the burden of change falls on employers, too.

“Recruiting the next generation is not just about changing those youth behaviors and attitudes, but also changing what we offer,” Hellen said. “Maybe it is more predictable schedules, fair compensation relative to the cost of living.”

He posed a pointed question to close his remarks.

“If we do nothing, if we keep hiring and training exactly the way we are and the way we always have been — what do the Poconos and Carbon County look like in 10 to 15 years, with an aging population, with fewer young adults, with a shrinking youth pipeline?” Hellen said. “It won’t be a thriving, balanced economy.”

Jennifer Aquila, executive director of admissions at LCCC, offered generational context. Generation Z, born 1997 to 2010, is politically aware and inclusive. Generation Alpha, born 2010 to 2024, has never known a world without social media.

“It should not be surprising when I tell you they have reduced attention spans,” Aquila said. “They have fewer in person connections. They are more likely than any past generation to be living in a single-parent household and they have the potential to redefine what the workforce looks like from them forward.”

At career fairs, she said the approach tells her everything.

“What is my first impression of that person approaching my table? That tells me a little bit about what role they’re going to be successful in,” Aquila said. “If I have somebody that stands back and they have a hard time connecting and introducing themselves, they’re probably not going to be a good fit for a sales position. But guess what? There’s positions at the front desk.”

Scholarships and awards

The collaborative also presented three $500 Health and Human Services Scholarships.

Alivia Palo, of Jim Thorpe High School, plans to pursue social work.

Jaelynn Bowlin, of Palmerton High School, will study nursing at Moravian University.

Marley Sabol, a Carbon Career and Technical Institute cosmetology graduate, received the third scholarship to help purchase equipment for her work at Midas Touch Hair Salon in Summit Hill.

Carbon County Commissioner Wayne Nothstein received the collaborative’s 2026 community leadership award, recognized for more than five decades with the Lehighton Fire Company, his role in overseeing construction of the Carbon County Emergency Operations Center and appointments by two governors to Pennsylvania’s Emergency Agency 911 Advisory Board, among other service.

Nothstein said the honor caught him off guard.

“I don’t know who the heck they were talking about,” Nothstein joked. “Never heard half those things I supposedly did.”

He credited the organizations around him, not himself.

“A lot of it for me is just being there and giving support when you can,” Nothstein said.