Executive Director, Western Slope Schools Career Collaborative

“The Homegrown Pathways model could address multiple human capital needs in our efforts to build regional career pathways for our students across rural school districts, in part through the support of current educators, work-based learning experiences and industry partnerships. Similarly, we are excited for the AmeriCorps role itself to be a powerful career pathway accelerant for our region’s high school graduates.”

Executive Director, Partners of Delta, Montrose & Ouray

“We see a critical need for at-risk youth across the region to have additional opportunities to experience 21st century technologies in ways that empower their own agency and ideas and directly connect to regional career opportunities. This model could enable that.”

Community Development Director, Region 10

"There is important potential for this model to support pathways for young people into our workforce training and entrepreneurship-supporting programs across the region."

Chief Executive Officer, Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of the 7th Judicial District

“We look forward to exploring how the AmeriCorps model can be used to advance career pathways opportunities for our youth.”

Executive Director, Yampa Valley Partnership (YVPS3)

“We believe the Homegrown Pathways model could bring critical human capital to our efforts to build regional career pathways for our students across four rural school districts, while strengthening our ability to engage local industry and businesses in our model.”

Dean Craig Campus, Colorado Northwestern Community College

“CNCC has built a unique portfolio of degrees and certifications that directly connect to high-quality careers in the region. Now we need to strengthen pathways for our region’s K-12 learners into these opportunities and we believe this model can support that goal.”

Executive Director, Mesa County Department of Human Services, and Interim Executive Director of the Mesa County Workforce Center

“The Homegrown Pathways model could bring critical human capital to our efforts to strengthen regional career pathways for our students and to better connect them to the increasing economic and educational opportunities in our region, including the career support that we provide through the Mesa County Workforce Center. We believe the model could further strengthen our overall career pathways ecosystem in Mesa County, in part by increasing capacity to create more work-based learning experiences.”

Vice President of Community College Affairs, CMU Tech

“CMU Tech has built a unique portfolio of degrees and certifications that directly connect to high-quality careers in our region. We are partnering with Mesa Valley School District 51, as we collectively work to drive economic mobility, innovation and meet regional workforce needs. This AmeriCorps service model could address important human capacity needs in our efforts to strengthen pathways for our region’s K-12 learners, while also creating pathways for the service members themselves to our degree programs.”

Executive Director, Grand Junction Economic Partnership

“The Grand Junction Economic Partnership (GJEP) is the economic development organization for Mesa County, and as such, we believe this project will provide significant value to the overall economic vitality of Western Colorado. GJEP’s mission is to create primary job opportunities and to diversify the economy to improve the quality of life for our community. One of the main questions our organization receives from prospective industry is 'what is the strength and availability of your region's workforce?' We see important potential for Homegrown Pathways to bring new capacity and resources that can facilitate stronger career pathways for the region's young people, and thereby strengthen the workforce needs of our business partners.”

Executive Director, Industry Partnerships, Metropolitan State University of Denver

“We see alignment between the Homegrown Pathway’s three core inputs and our own efforts to advance equitable, career-driven skills, experiences and pathways for the students we serve. We have discussed with MakerUSA/Homegrown Pathways' leadership their goal for the model to have state-wide scale, including in under-invested in urban communities. We see potential for the model to connect with our own programming in the Denver Metro region, including the MSU Denver Skills Lab, MSU Denver Career Launchpad, and Industry 4.0 Center of Excellence.

Additionally, MSU Denver is in a leadership role on the Colorado Cleanrange Consortium (of which MakerUSA is also a consortium member) and we see potential for this model to plug into efforts that can support advanced energy careers, especially in rural and under-invested urban communities.

MSU Denver looks forward to being a design partner of a Serve Colorado planning grant and potential collaborator on implementation in the future.”