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Mercer County ESC Business Advisory Council facilitates a recent Parkway Business Club tour through S&K Products. BAC is a locally focused partnership that unites education and business leaders to engage in dialogue, build trust and identify strategies that transform the student learning experience.
CELINA - Early in his tenure as Mercer County Community Development director, Jared Ebbing grew irritated with a nagging perception held by some parents that their children's futures lie far beyond the county's borders.
"I remember going around and talking to parents, and some people would say, 'Yeah, there's nothing here for our kids. They're going to have to go to Columbus … There's nothing to do here, there's no career opportunities," he said.
Nearly 17 years later, that myopic attitude has been turned on its head, Ebbing insisted, backing up his assertion with the results of surveys administered to local high school students and employers.
Mercer County, local officials maintain, has developed a sustainable economy fueled by innovation, entrepreneurship and a labor pool consisting of many locals who found and cultivated their calling while enrolled in one of the six county school districts.
Today, Mercer County's economic landscape is filled with advanced manufacturers, agri-businesses, a vital health care system and numerous small startups in various fields, all requiring a skilled workforce of one kind or another.
"I think the reason we've been successful is because we are intentional - intentionally building relationships with people (and) organizations that are going to build what we need in the best interests of our students," said Mercer County Educational Service Center superintendent Shelly Vaughn.
Some of the organizations are collaborating by mining, examining and applying data to ready a future workforce that meets the needs of local industry while at once securing the economic viability of Mercer County for decades to come. They include Wright State University-Lake Campus, Mercer County ESC and its Business Advisory Council, and the Mercer County Community Development Office.
In fact, the BAC in February was recognized by Gov. Mike DeWine with the highest rating at the state's 2026 Business-Education Leader Awards for Excellent Business Advisory Councils. The local BAC was one of 11 in Ohio to receive the state's 4-Star rating.
"The work to connect students with real career pathways doesn't happen in a classroom alone. It happens because business leaders, industry experts, community partners and school leaders show up, share expertise and open doors for our kids," Vaughn said.
Mercer County saw its population jump 4.2% between 2010 and 2020, significantly more than adjacent counties and the state as a whole, according to the results of the 2020 U.S. Census.
Local government officials believe the county can sustain this level of growth into the coming years because of an abundance of large families, a sizable number of younger residents and high birth rates.
"It's almost unheard of - if you follow rural issues across the United States - to have a community that's not next to a major metropolitan area, that has either a stable or growing population," said Greg Homan, a former Mercer County commissioner and current Wright State University-Lake Campus associate professor of agriculture. "It's a national phenomenon that rural counties, particularly if they're not next to a major metropolitan area like a Columbus or Cincinnati, that those populations are dropping."
Among other things, Homan cited a firm religious faith that encourages families, a vital local economy and strong school systems as factors playing into Mercer County's formidable standing in the last Census.
State projections for 2050 put rural Mercer County's population growth at -1.79%, compared to a more pronounced drop-off of -19.19% in Preble County, -20.26% in Allen County, and -25.88% in Wyandot County.
"By the time that rolls around, by 2050, we'll be positive, I'm confident," Ebbing said. "We've gained, I think, 4% or 5% each of the last two Census tracts. Most other rural counties, especially outside of a metropolitan area, have had negative numbers. We are positive."
Even if the projected decline for Mercer County materializes, Ebbing said he'd rather have -1% than the -20% or worse population forecasts facing other counties.
"Those are … negative numbers, and how do you sustain a school district? How do you sustain your tax revenue to sustain services that need to be offered in order to build upon growth?" Ebbing asked. "And that's why we never want to get to that point. I think getting ahead of this and always doing the proactive things, that never-ending homework assignment, so that you're always staying in front of students and parents and community and surveys like this."
Local data suggest that high school students have a positive perception of their workforce skills and local career opportunities and are mapping more precise employment pathways with the help of school officials, Tri Star Career Compact, Lake Campus and the BAC, which provide programs to connect students with area career opportunities and develop soft skills - or what are now referred to as "essential skills."
Students must demonstrate proficiency in these essential skills to earn the OhioMeansJobs-Readiness Seal. Students who earn the seal demonstrate they are ready to work, an important distinction that can go a long way with an employer or college, officials said.
BAC hosts an In-Demand Learning lab focused on construction in March. Over 150 students engaged with 40 business partners in hands-on career activities at the numerous labs focused on various career fields and industries.
"We hear from businesses that they want employees with soft skills," Vaughn said. "We collectively decided that we're going to call them essential skills."
"When we started the Mercer County ESC Business Advisory Council, this was the No. 1 thing we heard from businesses. So we are now in year four," said Mercer County ESC career navigator Sandi Holdheide. "We just want the businesses to understand we heard you. We know this is what you need in your workforce, and the schools, they were also very eager to make sure that students were walking away with these skills."
Homan elaborated on the origins of his local workforce readiness research.
"One of the reasons I got involved in all this is … I was in another community working professionally and in that community you could definitely feel a sense of the get-out-of-Dodge mentality," he said. "It shocked me growing up here in Mercer County that in this other community I was working in that they were no longer encouraged to stick around by their parents - that their parents … thought that there were better opportunities elsewhere."
When Homan reached out to local officials about the third iteration of workforce research he was about to embark on, they helped him tailor the survey to measure specific benchmarks.
"Because we've got specific goals that we work toward as a Business Advisory Council, and those goals are informed by our local companies a lot, as well as school districts," Vaughn said. "It validated a lot of the work that we're doing."
Homan recently rolled out the results of surveys assessing high school student workforce readiness and employer perceptions. A total of 475 responses were submitted by juniors and seniors from Celina, Coldwater, St. Henry, Parkway, Fort Recovery, Marion Local and Versailles schools. The bulk of the responses - 114, or 24% - came from St. Henry, followed by Fort Recovery at 20% and Marion Local at 17%.
Students evaluated their strengths and weaknesses, rating themselves on a scale of 1 to 3 on a host of workforce skills, with 1 being low and 3 high. Work ethic came in at the No. 1 spot with an aggregate rating of 2.77, followed by professionalism at 2.70, reliability at 2.69, punctuality at 2.67, discipline at 2.61, learning ability at 2.60, teamwork at 2.59, career management at 2.56, critical thinking at 2.54, communication at 2.48, leadership at 2.46, creativity at 2.46, fiscal management at 2.41, diversity at 2.39 and technology at 2.38.
Another piece of the workforce development puzzle is the local job website Hometown Opportunity, which 45% of respondents indicated they use a little, 34% not at all, 17% a moderate amount, 3% a lot and 1% a great deal.
The survey found that 37% of respondents have participated or plan to participate in a work-based learning experience, while 36% have participated and say it contributed to their goals, and 26% have not taken part.
An overwhelming majority of respondents - 73% - plan to or have already earned their OhioMeansJobs-Readiness Seal. About 20% are unsure about obtaining the seal, and 8% are not interested.
One of the key survey questions was students' impressions of the local area and their future, which they self-evaluated on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being high. The aggregate ratings were 3.88 for desire to live/work in the region in the future, 3.69 for likelihood the region will have good paying jobs, 3.74 for parental encouragement to stay or return to the region, 4.07 for confidence of post-high school career/workforce path, 3.88 for knowing the steps to be successful in a post-high school career/workforce path, 3.88 for level of guidance adults provided for a post-high school career/workforce path and 3.91 for level of information provided for a post-high school career/workforce path.
"By a large margin, they're indicating they feel very positively about their community, about their experiences in high school, about how strong their community is," Homan said. "Those are very good ratings across the board. So I think it speaks highly (about) getting our young people prepared for the future and again, keeping them here in our community - or at least exposing them to the opportunities."
Importantly, parents are the No. 1 driver of students' post-high school plans, he added.
"They might not identify the specific career for them, but they'll kind of steer them in a field or an area. … I think a lot of parents struggle with it. You'll talk to parents out there, and they struggle with how to guide their children with this career planning," Homan said.
Looking to the near future, 65% of the local high school students surveyed plan to go to college, 19% plan to enter the workforce directly, 8% are unsure, 6% plan to go to a trade or technical school, and 1% plan to join the military.
"This is the first time that I'm seeing a change in terms of post-high school plan intentions," Homan said, noting that in the past 75%-80% of respondents said they planned to go to college.
"And it's nice to feel that maybe the pressure is diminishing a bit (to go to college). … Hopefully that mindset is changing a bit, and we're encouraging young people to consider what their options are and to celebrate and encourage professional development, whatever that is."
Sixty local employers, ranging from manufacturers to construction companies to schools and local governments, responded to Homan's separate workforce survey, including 22 businesses with 26-100 employees and 12 with more than 100 employees.
Employers evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of their labor pool, rating employees on a scale of 1 to 3 on a host of workforce skills, with 1 being low and 3 high. Professionalism came in at the No. 1 spot with an aggregate rating of 2.35, followed by punctuality at 2.32, discipline at 2.30, reliability at 2.29, teamwork at 2.25, work ethic at 2.23, diversity at 2.20, critical thinking at 2.14, communication at 2.13, learning ability at 2.11, creativity at 2.09, technology at 2.00, leadership at 1.81 and career management at 1.80.
On the question of employment status, 59% of the local employers indicated plans to expand their workforce, 41% indicated they are stable and none said they're reducing employee levels.
"There wasn't a single response indicating that their intention was to reduce employee (levels)," Homan noted. "That speaks very highly of our future projections in terms of unemployment. I think there's a strong local economy that continues to have positive impressions."
