Elkhart County has always been a place where people learn by doing. In one corner of that story, a group of mid-career professionals are inching their way across a high ropes course, hearts pounding as they leave the comfort of solid ground and trust the cables, their own balance, and the voices cheering from below. In another corner, a 17‑year‑old apprentice is stepping into an IT department or an engineering team for the first time, learning how to navigate professional expectations and real responsibility instead of a simulated project on a worksheet. Both are acts of faith in what people can become when a community builds the right pathways around them.

This year, those two stories intersect in the Elkhart Leadership Academy’s partnership with CareerWise Elkhart County, the region’s modern youth apprenticeship program powered by Horizon Education Alliance (HEA). One impact team of the Academy is betting that more young people should get the same chance they did: to discover who they are by doing real work that matters, surrounded by people who want them to succeed.

A 38‑year experiment in growing leaders

When Greater Elkhart Chamber of Commerce president Levon Johnson talks about the Elkhart Leadership Academy, he starts with the long view. The Academy is in its 38th year, and its alumni now show up in “every business sector and philanthropic sector around the area,” he notes, pointing to a roster of graduates who have gone on to lead companies, nonprofits, and civic efforts across the region. For the Chamber, which sees a strong community and a strong business environment as inseparable, the Academy has become one of its most reliable ways to cultivate that next generation of leaders.

The experience is comprehensive. Over 10 months, a cohort of roughly 30 participants meets for monthly full‑day sessions on topics ranging from servant leadership to local economic development, with behind‑the‑scenes visits to places many have driven past for years but never entered. Participants also complete DISC personality profiles and are intentionally sorted into small impact teams that mix personalities, generations, genders, and employers.

“We’re kind of setting those groups up right out of the gate for conflict,” coordinator and alumna Ginger Lyons says with a laugh. But she adds that the Academy then gives them the tools to work through that conflict and grow their leadership in the process.

That growing edge shows up most vividly at the overnight retreat, held not at a resort but at a rustic camp where the culmination is a high ropes course. Lyons calls it the “learning zone,” just shy of the terror zone. Participants who insist they’ll never go up to the top often find themselves stepping off the platform anyway, bolstered by the shouts of encouragement from their new teammates. For Johnson, that moment captures what leadership will require of them later: doing the hard, uncomfortable thing with a community of support at their back.

From learning to impact: how nonprofits enter the story

Midway through the year, the Academy turns that inward growth outward. Local nonprofits are invited to apply to be project partners, and those selected give short presentations to the full cohort. Then comes a kind of structured “speed networking” where each impact team can ask questions and dig deeper into the organizations’ missions and needs. Afterward, the small groups research, rank, and ultimately choose the nonprofit they’ll walk alongside for the rest of the year.

In earlier years, the entire class worked with one nonprofit. Today, the four impact teams each take on a different partner. That shift has allowed the program to connect with a wider range of causes, from food security to youth development, while giving each team a more intimate, hands‑on experience. It also means the cohort is learning not just about leadership in the abstract, but about how nonprofits actually function: how they piece together funding, build relationships, and stay focused on mission in a demanding environment.

For this year’s impact team that includes radio program director Zach Miller and public service professional Jordan Bronke, the search for a nonprofit partner led them to CareerWise Elkhart County.

“It’s not just one path anymore”

Miller has spent nearly 18 years with Federated Media, working his way up from part‑time shifts after a Goshen College internship to a leadership position at Froggy 102.7 FM, a local radio station. Radio has taught him how to be “demonstrably local” in an era when anyone can get music, news, or podcasts on demand.

What makes radio worth tuning in to, he believes, is its ability to be a community builder: to show up for local causes, small businesses, and the people who make a place feel like home.

So when he heard CareerWise staff and apprentices speak to the Academy cohort, something clicked. The students’ stories, and the way the program bridged the gap between high school and the modern workplace, felt like a direct challenge to the educational narrative he’d grown up with. In his generation, Miller recalls, the message was simple: go to college if you want a real shot. If you didn’t, you might get a job, but there wasn’t much structure around learning a trade or building transferable skills.

CareerWise told a different story. In Elkhart County, the program has placed 200 apprentices across seven cohorts since 2019, with 99 active apprentices in the 2025‑26 school year and 38 United States Department of Labor certificate completers so far. Every apprentice who has completed the program has gone on to employment, postsecondary education, or both, many times simultaneously.

Those numbers are backed by the lived experience of graduates like Rolando Lopez, who came from a low‑income family and “never thought [he’d] have a career in engineering” until his apprenticeship at Surf Internet in Elkhart opened a door he didn’t know existed. Years later, Lopez continues to work as a valued team member at Surf.

“Apprentices gain real-world skills, confidence, and a clear path forward,” said Lauren Ulery, CareerWise Customer Success Manager and staff liaison to the Elkhart Leadership Academy group, “while employers gain motivated talent, fresh perspective, and a workforce trained exactly to their needs.”

Miller heard the stories of local apprentices’ experiences and saw a new way of doing talent development in a county famous for its work ethic and industrial capacity. To him and his teammates, youth apprenticeship felt like a natural fit for a community that already prides itself on rolling up its sleeves.

A first‑generation story that mirrors the mission

For Bronke, who works at the Elkhart Public Library, the connection ran even deeper. She is the first in her family to attempt college and remembers the quiet but persistent belief that if you didn’t pursue a four‑year degree right after high school, you were somehow falling short. She did enroll, but it didn’t go well; she eventually found herself back home, working in RV manufacturing and wrestling with the guilt and shame of feeling like she’d failed.

What followed was a winding path: managing stress through yoga, earning her yoga teaching certificate, stepping unexpectedly into a management role at a wellness studio during the pandemic, experimenting with entrepreneurship and content creation, and eventually landing at the library in a role that draws on all those experiences. When she learned about the Elkhart Leadership Academy from a coworker, she saw another chance to grow and to give back.

CareerWise’s mission — to show young people that it’s OK if college isn’t right for them right now, and that there are multiple valid routes into meaningful careers — felt personal. When her impact team ranked potential nonprofit partners after hearing presentations from 10 organizations, CareerWise was her top choice.

“Low‑key, I was like, ‘yes!’” she recalls thinking the moment she learned her team had been paired with CareerWise. It felt like a small sign that she’d landed exactly where she was meant to be.

Modern youth apprenticeship is ‘building a new system’

Youth apprenticeship, as CareerWise defines it, is not an either‑or alternative to college. It’s a new paradigm focused on creating more pathways to opportunity. Over two to three years, typically starting in 11th grade, apprentices split their time between school and paid, structured work in modern fields like IT, finance, healthcare, advanced manufacturing, and business operations. They build professional skills through monthly CareerWise‑led development sessions, earn income, and gain a clearer sense of how their interests map onto real jobs, all while progressing toward graduation.

For some, like Lopez, the experience leads directly into a career path with their host employer. For others, it clarifies their vision of the future and sends them into postsecondary education with a professional-experience head start on their peers, a much sharper sense of direction, and a higher chance to complete their degree. Either way, employers benefit from a pipeline of young talent that has already been trained in their systems and culture, reducing future recruitment costs and helping to address stubborn skill gaps.

Local employers are already taking notice. Forty‑one companies and organizations — from manufacturing firms like Patrick Industries and NIBCO to institutions such as Goshen Health, Beacon Health, school districts, financial services firms, and nonprofits — have hired youth apprentices since 2019. Leaders like Patrick’s Marissa Ulrich now see youth apprenticeship as a long‑term talent solution for highly skilled roles, from toolmaking and maintenance to human resources and procurement.

“The opportunities are endless,” Ulrich said. “Our current employees possess tremendous knowledge and experience, and the youth apprenticeship program provides them with a structured way to invest in the next generation of talent, making a lasting impact as leaders.”

Even employers who are not ready to host an apprentice themselves can play a role by sponsoring programs, supporting career exploration events like Career Quest and Manufacturing Day, or championing CareerWise in their networks.

“Youth Apprenticeships can provide a unique talent pipeline for businesses that are ready, but employer investment into our youth at ANY level begins cultivating a stronger, skilled workforce that helps all businesses in Elkhart County thrive,” said HEA president and CEO Sarah Metzler.

Why this group chose CareerWise

The decision for this ELA group to partner with CareerWise wasn’t just about numbers or program design, though those mattered. It was also about energy. Miller and Bronke both remarked on the passion and consistency they’ve seen from CareerWise staff: the way customer success managers show up for apprentices, the thoughtful structure of professional development, and the clear sense that this is about more than filling job openings.

Working so closely with a nonprofit has also shifted how some impact team members see the sector itself. Miller, who has spent much of his career in media, notes how reliant nonprofits are on public support, philanthropy, grants, and thoughtful partnerships with businesses. Sustaining that work requires the same kind of belief in the mission that a great salesperson has in their product, but applied to people’s futures, not just market share. The Academy’s nonprofit projects give participants a front‑row seat to that reality, which they can then carry back into their day jobs.

For Bronke, the partnership has reinforced her conviction that the young people she sees at the library deserve options that fit who they are. She recognizes pieces of her younger self in the apprentices, figuring out their path in real time, sometimes discovering that a path they thought they wanted is not, in fact, where they want to spend their career.

“Better to learn that at 17 with supportive adults around you than at 27 with a degree, debt, and no clear next step,” she said.

Building a storytelling engine for apprenticeship

The Academy expects each impact team to bring its own strengths and creativity to its nonprofit work. For this group, the members’ backgrounds — radio, public service, finance, city government, regional economic development, small business, and more — naturally lent themselves to communication and storytelling.

Together with mentors like ELA graduate Bryan Baer of Ancon Construction and chamber representative Jes Elam, the team has landed on two core contributions. First, they are helping CareerWise create and curate more content for social media and other channels, elevating apprentice and employer stories in formats that are easy to share. CareerWise Elkhart County can be found on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. There they share information about upcoming events; apprenticeship success stories; and video content featuring apprentices, employers, educators, and even the CareerWise staff themselves.

Second, and most ambitiously, they are helping to produce a new podcast series called Workplace Wins, in which ELA members will sit down with modern youth apprentices and the employers who host them.

The podcast, launching soon, will give listeners a chance to hear directly from the people living this work every day: high school students balancing classes and careers, supervisors who have learned how to coach emerging talent, and executives who now see apprenticeship as part of their long‑term workforce strategy. For employers who are curious but cautious, that kind of candid, local storytelling can be far more persuasive than any brochure.

To make it happen, the team has partnered with local marketing firm Spark 41, and is raising funds through sponsorships to cover production costs and exploring ways to leverage existing media infrastructure and relationships. For Miller, who spends his days thinking about how sound can connect people, the project is a natural extension of what radio has always done at its best: amplify local voices in a way that makes the community feel more connected.

Early adopters, champions, and neighbors

Elkhart County’s employers already know how to innovate. They’ve retooled production lines, entered new markets, and weathered economic cycles that might have hollowed out a less resilient region. Youth apprenticeship invites them to bring that same spirit of experimentation to how they grow people.

In many ways, the companies already working with CareerWise are early adopters in a growing national movement. They are setting the standard for what it looks like to invest in 16‑ and 17‑year‑olds not as “extra help” but as emerging professionals. They show that it is possible to integrate high school students into complex roles, provide meaningful supervision, and reap real business value in the process.

But they are also neighbors. They sit in the same bleachers at Friday night games, stand in the same checkout lines, and drive the same roads as the apprentices and families whose futures they are helping to shape. By opening their doors, they turn vague encouragements to “support our youth” into concrete opportunities: a desk, a project, a mentor, a paycheck, and a path.

This year’s Elkhart Leadership Academy impact team saw that potential and chose to spend their precious time and energy amplifying it. Their work is a reminder that leadership is not only about the roles people hold, but about what they decide to champion when they have the chance.

“We sincerely thank ELA for their continued support of CareerWise,” Ulery said. “Their passion, ambition, and authentic dedication to advancing opportunities for students are helping shape the future of youth apprenticeships.”

When the Workplace Wins podcast goes live, you’ll be able to hear those stories for yourself. In the meantime, if you’re an employer who’s curious about youth apprenticeship — or simply a community member who cares about what comes next for Elkhart County’s young people — you can learn more about CareerWise Elkhart County, explore ways to support apprenticeship, and watch for podcast updates at careerwiseusa.org/elkhart.

ELA CareerWise team members

Ryan Austin, Inova Credit Union

Jordan Bronke, Elkhart Public Library

Esteban Davila, Lake City Bank

Madison Henderson, South Bend Elkhart Regional Partnership

Zach Miller, Federated Media/Froggy Radio

Mandi Null, City of Elkhart

McKena Schmucker, Interra Credit Union

Melody Tamiz, Epic Dance Studios