North Ed career fair connects 1,200 students with 100 employers

More than 100 area employers packed North Ed Career Tech on Parsons Road Thursday, meeting with more than 1,200 high school students in Traverse City as the region pushed to connect local graduates with jobs close to home.

North Ed said the expo-style fair ran from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and cost businesses nothing to attend, with breakfast and lunch provided. The goal was straightforward: give employers a direct line to students before those students leave for college or work elsewhere, and show families that some of the fastest-opening paths are already taking shape in Grand Traverse County.

North Ed Career Tech serves more than 1,100 juniors and seniors from more than twenty high schools across Antrim, Benzie, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska and Leelanau counties. The center offers 23 technical programs, and North Ed says more than 500 area employers support those programs through job shadowing, mentoring, work exploration and co-op jobs. That network, built around placement counseling and career fairs, is designed to turn classroom training into local hiring pipelines.

Career Tech Director Patrick Lamb has said the fair is “one of our favorite days of the year” because it brings students, teachers and business and industry together. North Ed has organized the event for more than 15 years, and the scale has held steady even as the labor market has tightened. Last year’s fair drew more than 1,200 students and featured 85 representatives from local and regional businesses, a sign that employers continue to see the event as a practical way to recruit workers early.

The April 9 fair also came as North Ed deepened its postsecondary partnerships. In March, North Ed and Kettering University announced a plan to expand STEM pathways, career exploration and college options for Career Tech students, including a $25,000 annual scholarship for eligible North Ed CTE students who enroll at Kettering.

For Grand Traverse County families, the message was clear: the local economy is not just waiting for graduates, it is courting them. North Ed’s career fair showed that the quickest-growing opportunities may be the ones that let students build a future in the same region where they started.