Colorado Career Advising Summit: Building Bridges Across Education and Industry

The journey from education to employment has never been more complex. With rapidly evolving industries, shifting workforce demands, and the growing need for specialized skills, today's learners face unprecedented challenges in navigating their career pathways. Recognizing this critical need, the Business & Education Alliance (BEA) recently organized the Colorado Career Advising Summit, bringing together over 475 career development professionals from across the state.

Funded by a Colorado Department of Education (CDE) grant, this comprehensive two-day event held February 25-26 in Colorado Springs was designed with a single purpose: to strengthen Colorado's career advising ecosystem by breaking down silos between K-12 education, higher education, workforce development, and nonprofit organizations.

From Understanding to Action

The summit's structure intentionally guided participants through a journey—from understanding the "why" behind career advising to developing actionable plans for implementation. This approach reflected BEA's core philosophy that effective change requires both inspiration and practical application.

Day One: Discovering the Why & What

The first day opened with a welcome session that laid the groundwork for the summit's objectives. Participants explored their collective purpose through "A Journey of Purpose & Passion," rediscovering the transformative impact they have as career advisors while exploring innovative approaches to connect learners with meaningful career opportunities.

A morning highlight was the Young Adult Panel, featuring seven young people who shared candid reflections on their diverse education-to-employment journeys. Their firsthand accounts of navigating confusing systems, finding mentors, and discovering pathways aligned with their passions provided a powerful context for the attending professionals.

"Hearing directly from young adults about what worked—and what didn't—in their career planning journey was invaluable," noted a high school counselor from the Denver area. "They reminded us that behind all our systems and processes are real people making life-defining decisions, often with incomplete information."

Young Adult Panel participants with Stacey Burns moderating

The morning concluded with a comprehensive review of Colorado's Career Advising Landscape, mapping the resources and recommendations across education and workforce sectors. This session highlighted both the wealth of existing resources and the challenges of fragmentation that learners face when navigating multiple systems.

After lunch in downtown Colorado Springs, participants engaged in multiple rounds of interactive breakout sessions designed to showcase successful programs and practices from across Colorado's career development ecosystem. These sessions covered:

Career exploration and development programs
Strategies for supporting diverse populations
Promising practices in career advising
Future planning approaches
Free and effective resources available to practitioners

The day concluded with a networking reception that allowed participants to forge connections across sectors, creating the foundation for ongoing collaboration.

Day Two: Putting it all Together & Creating Action

The second day focused on translating insights into concrete action plans. The morning began with an innovative "unKeynote" session by Colleen Keating-Crawford of the Reinvention Lab with Teach for America, which framed the day's collaborative work and activated participants' creative mindsets for planning.

Crossing the Canyon: Ethnographic Findings About Life After High School by The Reinvention Lab with Teach for America

The core of Day Two involved two complementary collaborative sessions:

Regional Implementation Planning

Participants connected with others from their geographic regions to strengthen collaboration and maximize collective impact in their local education-to-employment ecosystem. These discussions revealed significant variation in regional resources and challenges, emphasizing the need for locally tailored approaches within a coherent statewide framework.

Role-Based Collaboration: Applying the Crossing the Canyon Framework

Following the regional work, participants divided into groups based on how their organizations and roles aligned with The Reinvention Lab's "Crossing the Canyon" framework. This innovative model identifies four essential roles in the career development ecosystem:

Map Makers: Those who create awareness of career pathways and possibilities
Bridge Builders: Those who develop programs and connections between education and employment
Transport Helicopters: Those who provide resources and support systems for learners
Trail Guides: Those who directly advise and mentor individuals on their journey

Each quadrant group discussed their unique challenges and opportunities, identified gaps in the current system, and developed strategies to strengthen their specific function while better connecting with the other quadrants.

"Seeing my role within the larger ecosystem was eye-opening," shared a career advisor from a community college. "Understanding how my work as a Trail Guide connects with Map Makers and Bridge Builders helped me identify collaboration opportunities I hadn't considered before. We face many of the same challenges, and I'm leaving with practical solutions I can implement immediately."

Impact and Outcomes

The summit concluded with a wrap-up session that captured key learnings and outlined next steps for continuing momentum. Evaluation data collected from 100 participants revealed promising indicators of impact:

Overall Experience: 81% of participants rated the summit as meeting or exceeding their expectations, with 44% giving it the highest possible rating
Networking Value: 87% of participants rated the networking opportunities as valuable or extremely valuable
Implementation Confidence: 80% of participants reported feeling confident about implementing what they learned
Cross-Sector Connections: 63% expressed interest in participating in follow-up activities or communities of practice
Future Engagement: 85% of participants reported they are likely or extremely likely to recommend the summit to colleagues

Participant comments highlighted key takeaways that aligned with BEA's core mission:

"There are huge gaps in the Workforce Development and career ecosystem. Career pathway experts need to think differently than in the past."
"Collaboration of workforce, K12, and higher Ed"
"Everyone is experiencing uncertainty in the current landscape, but if we work together and engage our networks, we can still serve our community."
"The canyon does exist."

When asked about immediate actions they would take based on their summit experience; participants mentioned implementing specific tools (like the Colorado Career Advising Tool), sharing learnings with their teams, and developing new approaches to career guidance.

Looking Forward: From Summit to Systems Change

While the summit represented a significant milestone, it marks just the beginning of a longer journey toward a more cohesive career advising system in Colorado. The event revealed several key insights that will inform future work:

Cross-sector collaboration is essential but rare. Participants repeatedly noted the value of interaction with colleagues from other sectors of the education-to-employment pipeline, with 80% reporting that the conference structure provided ample time for such exchanges.
Resource awareness remains a challenge. Despite numerous quality resources across the state, awareness of these tools varies widely. One participant shared: "There's a whole ecosystem of career advising pathways and systems that track recommendation frameworks that I could lean into!"
Ecosystem coordination requires intentional leadership. Building and maintaining connected systems won't happen organically—it requires dedicated coordination, common frameworks, and shared commitment. The summit demographics underscored this need, with representation from K-12 education (46%), postsecondary education (17%), nonprofit & business (25%), government (6%), and workforce (5%).
Regional variation demands flexible approaches. With participants from diverse regions including Colorado Springs (37%), Metro Denver (35%), Northern Colorado (8%), and others, the summit highlighted how effective implementation must account for significant regional differences in industry presence, educational institutions, and community needs.
Cross-sector collaboration is essential but rare. Participants repeatedly noted how valuable—and unusual—it was to have meaningful interaction with colleagues from other sectors of the education-to-employment pipeline.
Resource awareness remains a challenge. Despite numerous quality resources across the state, awareness of these tools varies widely, especially across geographic and institutional boundaries.
Ecosystem coordination requires intentional leadership. Building and maintaining connected systems won't happen organically—it requires dedicated coordination, common frameworks, and shared commitment.
Regional variation demands flexible approaches. While statewide systems and resources are valuable, effective implementation must account for significant regional differences in industry presence, educational institutions, and community needs.

Over the coming months, BEA will continue working with summit participants and additional stakeholders to advance the integration of Colorado's career advising ecosystem. With 63% of participants expressing interest in follow-up activities or communities of practice, we have a solid foundation for ongoing collaboration.

As one participant aptly summarized: "For too long, we've been doing excellent work in isolation. This summit reminded us that the power of our impact multiplies when we work together across boundaries—just as we ask our students to do in their own career journeys."

The Colorado Career Advising Summit was made possible through funding from the Colorado Department of Education and the dedicated efforts of the Business & Education Alliance team and partners. For more information about ongoing collaboration opportunities or future events, contact info@businessandeducationalliance.org.