Career Speakers, Events, and Fairs

Career Speakers, John Little, Annie Kerins, Kai B. White, and Steve Gagliastro visit students at Northbridge High School ahead of their performance in A Christmas Carol

Jumping into the half way point of the 2025-2026 school year, I am reflecting on all the wonderful career speakers and events students have been exposed to across central Massachusetts so far. Looking ahead, there are even more plans to support and engage our future workforce.

As a Connecting Activities provider the Blackstone Valley Hub for Workforce Development is committed to the following goals:

• Expand career immersion learning opportunities that promote career readiness and skill development.

• Increase the number of students participating in work-based learning (WBL)experiences, such as internships, job shadows, YouthWorks employment and career exploration events, in addition to increasing MyCAP implementation for all students, when applicable.

• Strengthen partnerships with employers and industry leaders to ensure all students have access to authentic career development opportunities, prioritizing high wage, high demand fields identified as growth areas that will provide family sustaining wages in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

• Support the efforts of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), the Executive Office of Education and the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development to improve equity and access to career development education opportunities for underserved student populations.

Sutton Career Day, Top L-R, Annie Kerins, Dipal Bhatia, Dominic Ciampa, Middle L-R Kristen Marengo, Carlos Dingui, Bottom L-R Vanessa Haerle, and Chris Kasabula

As my role in school programming and events has expanded, I've been able to introduce students to our own BVHub 20/40 Speaker Series in addition to supporting their administrators with speakers for the school's own events.

Yesterday, I was on site at Sutton Middle School for one of 4 Career Day Speaker Events hosted for over 300 students in 7th, 8th, and 10th grade. This impressive series invites a dozen speakers from a diverse range of pathways: Marketing, Law Enforcement, Business, Finance, Arts, and beyond. Over 20 faculty are involved in the event, as the speakers are in individual classrooms, giving students the opportunity to sign up for 2 sessions with individual speakers. One of the best quotes I heard as this event,

"Your future is full of opportunity" -Dipal Bhatia, Unibank

School Counselors from Douglas Public Schools, including Jen Markopoulos

In December, I had the privilege to reflect on my own career pathway in the entertainment industry-a competitive, but rewarding pathway. Douglas Middle School hosted a Career Day event similar to Sutton Middle School. Impacting over 200 7th & 8th graders, students had the ability to sign up to listen to 2 separate speakers, spread across 20 classrooms. At that event I got to speak with students about my work with The Hanover Theatre ahead of their attendance to see the annual production of A Christmas Carol. I have served as associate director of this production since 2018, so it was exciting to share my experience in that role and more generally about my experiences in the industry.

"We’re truly excited to have you share your experiences with our students as they begin thinking about their futures and the many paths available to them." Jen Markopoulos, Douglas Middle School, School Counselor

There are many different formats which can be successful when hosting career speakers. For our own BV Hub 20/40 Speaker Series, we have opted to customize each event with the

BV Hub 20/40 Speaker Series at Miscoe Hill Middle, L-R Annie Kerins, Kristie Raymond, Erica Shields, and Principal Anne Corron

host school based on their own requests and current labor market data. This series takes a look at a specific career pathway from two different entry points, the early stage and the advanced stage. Thus far we've visited Miscoe Hill Middle School with 6 schools in attendance (either in person or virtually) ranging from Middle School to High School to administrators. This November event featured casting director, Kristie Raymond and young artist Erica Shields and had 80 participants. The previous month our BV Hub 20/40 Speaker Series focused on Health Science hosted at Northbridge High School with speakers, Dr. John E. Harris, and brain injury advocate Hunter Schulz impacting 3 school districts and 41 participants (both in person and virtually).

Zoom recordings are available for our BVHub 20/40 Speaker Series. Contact barrett.lauren@bvhub.org for applicable links!

In November, we were invited to participate in the annual Hopedale High School Career Fair. With tables organized by career clusters, students grades 7-10 visited approximately 40 tables and had the opportunity to participate in 30 minute panel discussions. The tag line for the event was "Plant the seed to your future" and 380 students were in attendance. This event reminded me of Milford High School's annual spring College and Career Fair.

Students leaving Hopedale High School's November Career Fair

Looking forward, our next visit will be to Uxbridge High School the morning of Wednesday, February 11 for our third installment of the BV Hub 20/40 Speaker Series. This hybrid event will once again be offered to twelve school districts who may join via zoom in addition to our Partnered School, Uxbridge, hosting in person. The focus of these career speakers will be on pathways connected to Biomedical Engineering. We are collaborating with the bioprocessing company, Repligen for this event. Stay tuned for more information.

On the horizon, we are also supporting spring College & Career Fairs for high school students at Millbury and Milford. If you need support accessing career speakers or are interested in volunteering, don't hesitate to reach out to me at kerins.annie@bvhub.org!