GREENFIELD — Mt. Vernon High School freshman Kiara Buechler traveled with her classmates to Elanco Animal Health, a company she said she’s always dreamed of working for. She met with the organization’s employees, picked their brains on what working for Elanco was like and received a full tour of Elanco’s headquarters.
It wasn’t a bad way to spend a school day, she said with a smile.
The Greenfield Area Chamber of Commerce put on the fifth annual “Don’t Fear the Future” career exploration day Wednesday. More than a dozen of Hancock County’s largest employers met with freshmen from Greenfield-Central and Mt. Vernon high schools to showcase the multitude of career options available to them right here at home, chamber President Retta Livengood said.
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Career exploration day is designed to get some of the community’s youngest citizens thinking about what fields they may want to enter after graduation, Livengood said.
The students were exposed to a variety of opportunities for professional career paths, meeting with representatives from organizations in both the private and public sectors throughout the day. The students visited with employees from Elanco, NineStar Connect, Hancock Regional Hospital, Stanley Black & Decker, the Greenfield Police Department and the Greenfield Fire Territory.
When young people have positive interactions with businesses in their own community, it shows them that they don’t necessarily need to move to a big city to pursue a career in a thriving industry like technology or biochemistry, said Colleen Parr Dekker, director of communications at Elanco Animal Health. Elanco focuses on developing new veterinary products and services and working with agricultural science professionals, but the company has a range of available career paths they could follow, from marketing to public relations, she said.
“I think one of the big ‘Aha’s!’ for people in the room today was the idea that we’re not just an ag company,” Dekker said. “Yes, we’re an agricultural company, but regardless of what your career might be, there’s a place here in Elanco: engineers, finance, accountants, IT and scientists, obviously. There’s a huge need for talent in all fields.”
Kiara said she hopes to go into corporate communications after college, and Elanco has always been at the top of her list of places she’d like to end up.
“Elanco is one of the places I’ve been wanting to work for the longest time,” Kiara said. “It’s my dream job, to be honest.”
The students were also given the opportunity to explore jobs relating to exercise science as they toured Greenfield’s Hancock Wellness facility. Students met with exercise specialists and learned about the ins and outs of the professional world of fitness and wellness, said Yvette Dixon, the facility’s general manager.
Dixon said she encouraged the visitors to consider getting a degree that will provide them with plenty of options. Many of her employees have schooling that complements multiple roles; for example, the medical director for Hancock Wellness is a fully licensed physician. Not only does she meet with individual patients each day, but she provides medical oversight for the gym’s various exercise programs, Dixon said.
Ellie Ewald, a G-C freshman, said she’s interested in pursuing a physical therapy program after graduation. The tour of Hancock Wellness gave her an important inside look at a career field she may be interested in entering one day.
“We got to see a Zumba class, a swimming class, and we learned about the different rehabilitation machines, which was cool,” Ewald said. “I learned a lot more about the career I want to pursue, and I got a lot more information about what different branches of physical therapy I could go into.”
Hancock Wellness had a goal for the career exploration day to show students the value of career exploration while they’re still in school, Dixon said.
“When you’re that young, most kids don’t have any idea what they want to do,” Dixon said. “They don’t even know what’s out there. So our goal today was just to show them what’s available to them.”
