Local teachers visit Legacy Farmers Cooperative in June as part of Raise the Bar Hancock County’s Summer Educator Experience focused on Sustaining Our Community.
Programming Will Focus on AI, Data Storytelling and Data Analytics
Raise the Bar® Hancock County was awarded $262,500 between two grants from the State of Ohio this month, funding that will continue its dynamic work in preparing the region’s workforce for ever-evolving challenge and opportunity.
The organization received $62,500 from the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce defining it as a designated partnership in the state – the selected collaborator in one of seven JobsOhio-identified regions that help students connect classroom learning to future careers. The other $200,000 comes from an Ohio Department of Development Industry Sector Partnership (ISP) Grant that will support general programming. RTB also plans to roll out a new website, likely later this month.
Matt Gilroy, executive director of Findlay-Hancock County Economic Development
RTB is an important partner to economic development in strengthening the local workforce. Its mission is “Connecting stakeholders to advance workforce excellence.” This mission aims to reach RTB’s vision of “Evolving the paradigms of workplace opportunity to build a community where employment and career advancement are accessible and attainable.”
Tricia Valasek, executive director of Raise the Bar, said they are “6 for 6” receiving the crucial grant, and each year they propose projects that reflect change in industry and education. This year, emphasis will be placed on critical skillsets – AI, data storytelling, and data analytics – that have risen in importance across careers.
“These are the main buzz topics right now, and they’re not going away,” Valasek said. “These are skills across careers that people will need to learn or continue to learn. They will need to infuse these skills to be successful in the workforce.”
Valasek described data storytelling as using the right kinds of charts or graphs with the right information and visualization to tell the story of data without a giant table. Data dashboards incorporate data storytelling – displays designed to share complex information at a glance.
Tricia Valasek, executive director of Raise the Bar Hancock County
Data analytics, Valasek said, involves “giant data stacks and records,” and knowing how to query the data to solve problems and track important metrics. For example, staff of a hospital emergency room might want to track how fast the emergency room is responding to patients —“How do you set up the queries to reflect what you want to know?”
Artificial intelligence is an inevitable topic, Valasek said.
“It has already touched a lot of businesses in some way, shape or form,” Valasek said. “There is a lot of concern about security of the information, or if it is going to wipe out jobs. People need to know how to properly use AI and that there are many systems available. People rely on it as truth, but that’s not always what it produces – you need to know how to ask the right question to get a good answer back.”
Valasek said Raise the Bar’s Career Expo for students in October will be focused on these topics in technology. Offered once per month throughout the school year, Raise the Bar’s Career Expo Series allows high school students and teachers to explore the workplaces and careers of Hancock County’s industries. Past expos have included advanced manufacturing, agriculture and natural resources, architecture and construction, computers and technology, finance, marketing, and more.
They are also working out details to organize a summit based on data storytelling, data analytics and AI for anyone in the community to attend later this year.
RTB’s new website will more directly fulfill their mission of “connecting stakeholders to advance workforce excellence.”
“Right now, the website is more ‘here is Raise the Bar’ and ‘this is what we do’ instead of being a place where people can go to understand the workforce in Hancock County,” Valasek said. “We want to be a central location for credible, reputable resources and connections.”
A local student engages in RTB’s 2026 Mock Interview Day. The event was held in May connecting nearly 400 11th grade students from all districts in Hancock County with business professionals for a full-day, hands-on career readiness experience.
The website will also provide resources for employers for times when they would like to host students and ways to connect with teachers in different Hancock County school districts. There will also be resources to support job seekers, and the website will highlight investors when people look them up.
Valasek said Raise the Bar needs matching dollars ($1 privately invested from donors/businesses for every $1 Raise the Bar draws from the state) as part of the $200,000 grant. Companies interested in investing in Raise the Bar to contribute toward this match and future efforts directly serving the long-term talent pipeline can reach out to Valasek at tvalasek@raisethebarhancock.org.
