Kansas Profile – Now That’s Rural: Kristin Brighton, HirePaths

By Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University

To get to the top, you need to take higher paths. That sounds like good advice for mountain climbers, but it might also apply to those seeking a successful career pathway.

In that case, these are not higher paths, but rather ‘Hirepaths.’

Today we’ll meet the Kansan who is leading an effort to help families learn about high demand jobs for which young people can be hired within our state. 

Kristin Brighton is co-founder and co-owner of the New Boston Creative Group, a marketing agency in Manhattan. She is also the leader of this project known as HirePaths.

Brighton is a Manhattan native who went to K-State, married and moved to Kansas City with her husband. After four years, he took a position at K-State and they moved back to Manhattan, where she started doing freelance marketing work.

Brighton encountered freelance marketing specialists Lisa Sisley and Susan Religa.  They joined together in 2006 to form a marketing agency called New Boston Creative Group, using Manhattan’s original historic name.

As chair of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce in 2016, Brighton heard from local businesses about the pressing need to get more young people working in the skilled trades. She found that this message was not reaching schoolkids and their families.

She conceived the idea of a marketing campaign that would introduce youth and families to high demand jobs within Kansas. Brighton researched the idea. She reached out to multiple state agencies, the Kansas Board of Regents, Manhattan Technical College, and others.

With their support, this project came to be known as HirePaths. Brighton led fund-raising efforts to get the project off the ground.

A major part of the research was to collect data on parent’s perceptions. In 2019, HirePaths partnered with the Kansas State Department of Education to conduct a statewide survey that provided baseline data.

Three key Kansas entities stepped up to provide major private sector funding as founding HirePaths sponsors: Textron Aviation, Kansas Contractors Association and Stormont Vail Health. Other businesses — such as Garmin, Foley Equipment and Spirit Aerosystems — have provided support as well.

HirePaths set up a fund with the Kansas Rural Communities Foundation, which has allowed it to successfully secure various grants to support the project.

“We want to help fill the jobs that Kansas needs in order to thrive, and to make sure our kids have opportunities to stay in-state if they choose,” Brighton said. The marketing campaign includes several elements videos highlighting in-state job opportunities, billboards, a website and more.

The Cool Careers videos highlight youth talking about diverse in-state career opportunities across Kansas. “We have featured youth from Ulysses to Pittsburg,” Brighton said.

Highlighted careers range from aerospace to transportation. These include aviation, agriculture and animal health, business and administrative, construction, culinary, energy, manufacturing, medical, public service, service, technology, and more.

Specific jobs include welders, pilots, carpenters, information technology installers, dairy farmers, teachers, electrical engineers, plumbers, distribution support specialists, heavy equipment operators, cybersecurity analysts, sheet metal mechanics, agronomists, restaurant managers, doctors, nurses, robotics and so forth.

The videos feature actual Kansas kids discussing these careers. The videos are recorded on-site across the state, even inrural communities such as Rexford, population 197 people. Now, that’s rural.

The website includes a career quiz to help students define their interests, plus descriptions of options after high school, success stories, and activities for kids. Kansas PBS stations are showing the videos on television. HirePaths is now partnering with Kansas 4-H to reach more youth.

“We are also developing an in-person, half-day career exploration event called a Career Hunt, targeted to seventh graders,” Brighton said. “We will pilot these events in Manhattan and Hays in 2025.”

“For Kansas to be successful, we need to keep homegrown talent here.” 

To learn more, go to www.hirepaths.com.

To get to the top of the mountain, take the higher paths – or in this case, take the career pathway to high demand jobs in our state. We salute Kristin Brighton and all those involved with HirePaths for making a difference by encouraging career exploration.

This is a path to success.Audio and text files of Kansas Profiles are available at https://www.huckboydinstitute.org/kansas-profiles. For more information about the Huck Boyd Institute, interested persons can visit http://www.huckboydinstitute.org.

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