Q: How did Jumpstart and Kickstart come to be — and how do they connect?

After Riley’s accident, we received a lot of very generous support from the community and we didn’t want to set up a one-and-done scholarship because that wasn’t really true to who Riley was. So a good friend of mine suggested we tap into apprenticeship and she helped me create a program for registered apprenticeship.

But in the state of Colorado, you cannot use a nonprofit for a registered apprenticeship program, so we came up with Kickstart — which is another play on a car pun, but just another great word that ties in Riley because he was a car nut. Motorcycle, car, airplane — anything fast.

Q: How would you describe Jumpstart in a few sentences?

Jumpstart is an organization that has a mission to  address the disconnect between opportunities and real careers — like real jobs — and high school students that are ready to enter into those positions. There are 17- and 18-year-olds that are ready and willing and capable of starting to walk on that path to a career. Not just a summer job or something that just pays great, but they’re ready to start their career. We bridge that gap between businesses and industry and high school students — education in general.

Q: What industry did you start with, and where did things go from there?

We were kind of all over at first. Our first few apprentices were in construction and, believe it or not, in IT. We placed two high school students that were amazing students but weren’t sure about college. They went into IT and one of them is still working in that industry. She’s a DOD contractor, she makes great money, she has no college debt, and she’s exactly where she would have been if she had gone to college for four years.

So initially we were all over, and then we started to focus on automotive. and partnered with D49, and they already had a great partnership with Phil Long in Colorado Springs. After that connection, we came up with some great models to implement with the automotive industry. That’s what catapulted us to where we are today because we had such great success with the automotive partners.

Q: What’s the misconception students have about opportunities in manufacturing and the trades?

That no one will take them seriously. They think: I’m 17 or 18 — is someone really going to teach me and train me and pay me while I’m learning?

It’s also a very challenging world to even get an interview. They don’t understand that a face-to-face interview is invaluable to business partners because they’re not taught that in general. We’re in the day and age of using a phone and a QR code to apply for a job, so it’s very foreign to them — to think that they can walk into a shop, ask for an interview, and someone will actually sit down with them.

In the automotive world, they love that. They would love it — but they don’t want 20 kids coming to their shop asking for interviews. Which is what’s so great about Draft Day.

Q: Tell us about Draft Day — the magic of it.

There is magic. There really is.

The idea came after I realized it’s not a good use of my time to keep doing one-on-one type speakers in classrooms and then having a line of kids lined up to work for that one business partner. After working with D49 and Kelsey Grimaldo — who was the amazing work-based learning coordinator at the time, we’re both past basketball players — and I’d always had a vision of a “Draft Day”[as a concept to bring students and businesses together], but I didn’t really have all the pieces together. After we started working together, we came up with it.

The idea is speed dating, but speed interviewing. We do 15-minute rotations. A business partner gets to interview a student for about 15 minutes. We recruit those students from the relevant CTE classes, vet them, do interview prep with them — and even go back into their classrooms beforehand to talk more about what Draft Day looks like.

Each student gets to interview between 4 to 6 business partners, and the business partners interview about 12 to 15 students — rotating every 15 minutes, starting around 9am and going until about 2 in the afternoon. Everyone is exhausted at the end of the day, which is great.

Before the interviews even start, we do what we call “Pregame” — more interview prep. We talk about soft skills. When you walk into your interview you need to shake their hand. You need to look them in the eye. Your phone should be not just in your pocket but turned off — there should be no ring. Most of these students have never had an in-person interview. Ever.

At the end of the day, we do a “Postgame” where we get feedback from everyone. Business partners share their top four students they’d like to make an offer to. Students share what worked, what didn’t. Then we draft them — we take each other’s picks and “draft” them.

Then [Jumpstart] does all the follow-up. Once they make the offer, I reach out to the person at the school — the instructor or the work-based learning coordinator — and say, ‘Hey, Sarah just received an offer from Phil Long. Can you follow up with her and see how she’s feeling? Because if she’s not interested, we need to move on to the next pick on their list so we’re not wasting anyone’s time’. Typically within a week or two, we have it mostly sorted out. Within a week to ten days, everyone knows who their pick is, they’ve made an offer, and then they start the onboarding process. And [Jumpstart]  just becomes support. We stay in the background.  I try to keep it super simple.

Q: For those who don’t know — what is CTE?

CTE is Career and Technical Education offered in High Schools. Students do their core classes in the morning on a regular schedule, and then they go to a CTE class. A CTE class ranges from automotive to aesthetics — it’s very broad. There’s marketing, business, IT, manufacturing, auto technician. All kinds.

With automotive and manufacturing, you need a facility — a shop — so you can put in a lift, bring in a car. But robotics is becoming very popular. Engineering is popular across the whole county. Most schools have engineering and robotics. Business and marketing, accounting and finance, those are everywhere.

Students typically go to CTE two or three days a week — it depends on whether schools are on block schedules. And within a district, some schools will even bus kids to a CTE program at another high school so they can participate. D20, for example, buses kids to Liberty High School from other schools so they can be part of the automotive CTE program.

Q: What has surprised you most about this work?

The manufacturing community — as you see at COMP (Colorado Manufacturing Partners) — they’re so generous. When we talk to them, it’s just  like, yeah, how can I help? 

That was overwhelming for me to experience  because I’m naturally an introvert. But coming into that energy, the way they were so welcoming, was like… unbelievable. They are awesome.

Q: At COMP, we’re building a community rooted in clear, intentional communication around the partners and support needed — so we can create mutual value together. What would you ask of those reading?

Well, I would say our mission takes a village. We’re investing in the next generation of talent that industries like manufacturing really need, especially with the labor shortage and high turnover crisis. It’s really a crisis. And Jumpstart is doing our part to help.

So if you’re a manufacturing company looking for talent and want to participate in our Draft Day to have access to a talent pool of young, ambitious professionals – please, reach out to me. We’ve got the kids who are ready and willing. They just need an opportunity. 

Speakers are also great too when we go into the classrooms. Manufacturing leaders and employees who can share their story and journey to students who are so curious about what a career in manufacturing looks like, or what it could lead to.

And finally, we need sponsors. Companies  that are really passionate about solving this economic workforce challenge. No criteria – just companies interested in helping to stretch our mission. These partners are so critical—so impactful. And we are so much stronger together.