Hey, thank you very much welcome back might on the mirror here 706 sunny good-looking Monday morning and 97.9 FM WGBW 98.3 and 96.5 FM WSS of course the Civic Media app 44 degrees and Green Bay 45 and Ampton 46 and Oshkosh forecast cloudy was showers
High in the low fifties, but as Brittany Merleau said, there's gonna be some nice weather coming up.
Gotta deal with a few little rain showers and things like that.
It looks like, but otherwise, it's gonna be a great week.
gonna be all right.
Buddy again.
She wasn't saying 38 degrees
like is what we've had very recently here I get a text I'd love to see Green Bay move way up to take Travis Hunter He can play wide receiver of defensive back tired of Goody going for the boring linemen or DB's that don't pan out There's no way they'll get Travis Hunter.
It would be phenomenal to have him But he is going to be probably the second player taken in the entire draft and Packers would have to forfeit pretty much everything
to move up that high.
You
About who they're drafting?
agree.
three people, I would be like, I know.
I don't know.
But when you're drafting 23rd.
It's
You know what I mean?
It's pretty tough.
There always is chatter.
But again, when you're drafting that low, you really got to pull off.
you know, some big moves.
I remember when I was a kid, it was like the biggest and we're like, Oh my God.
Does anybody else remember when the Packers made the trade with Chicago Bears?
I want to say for the second pick.
Oh, well, overall in the draft and they gave the Bears.
I remember Elijah Pitts, Leroy Caffey, and I think Bob Highland.
If I'm not mistaken, somebody helped me out on this one in order to get Mike McCoy.
the big defensive lineman from Notre Dame, who was going to be, he was almost like the Tony Mandrich of his day, although a nicer guy, I shouldn't say nicer guy, Tony was a nice guy, but he was almost like the Tony Mandrich of his day in that he was so hyped, you know, cover of sports illustrate, cover of some other man cover, he was that guy.
And he turned out to be very, very average.
But when we're talking about guys being drafted and draft and where we've got the guru, the editor of Lindy Sports pre draft magazine to a thousand twenty five draft guide, which you can buy at Boston's News on Broadway Street downtown to appear.
It is the literal Bible of this draft.
Dean Bruce, good morning.
Thank you for taking the time to join mine on the mayor here in Green Bay, Alpton and Oshkosh.
Hey, good morning, guys.
How are you today?
Outstanding.
How are you?
No, we already, okay.
You know, these crazy things are happening.
You know, we're talking about how far up can they move to get a Travis Hunter?
How fun.
These are, that's all part of the fun of heading into a draft.
And I just have to say though, I was talking about when I was a little kid, the Packers did a big trade to draft that by the name of Mike McCoy out of Notre Dame, who didn't pan out yet.
You gotta, boy, people can get so excited about moving up.
But if you go through history, a lot of those didn't pan out.
Wouldn't you agree?
Yeah, I would say so.
I mean, you've got some examples like the Zach Wilson or not even the Zach Wilson bit trade, the trade, Lance trade.
That was one of the Hallmark big trades of the decade.
That one hasn't panned out at all.
The Bryce Young trade moving up to get him.
I mean, that's just completely not panned out.
I mean, there's just been a history, especially with the quarterback position.
I mean, I don't think that's very likely this year.
I don't think anyone's moving up for Chador, but
I think it's difficult to get those guys, especially in the first round, to trade up for them.
I think it often doesn't work out as often as you want to.
And you're losing capital.
I mean, it's going to be the general manager for the most part.
I mean, the coach always has a little bit of hand in this.
I'm sure Mike McCarthy will get some, get some talking about what he wants to do.
But, um, I think at the end of the day, it's going to be the Packers GM.
I believe it's going to be able to, you know, put his foot down and be like, Hey, this is our guy.
This is who we're going after.
I wouldn't be shocked if the past catcher this year.
I think getting Jordan love more weapons is going to be a big priority for them, but it could also be secondary.
I know they lost a lot of guys this year.
I think, I think.
It's gonna be interesting.
I don't know.
I don't know if there's anyone I'd want to move up for either those positions The depth is so strong at cornerback and about where y'all picking I think it's I think wide receivers not out of play
Dean I gotta be honest here, man I've covered the Packers since 1984 and I don't know if there's ever been a year where we went into a draft where we didn't say we got to get some wide receivers for Lynn Dickie for Brett for Aaron Rogers for Jordan Love that's been going on for years and years and years and I swear every year Packer friends are all excited and it's from
Iowa State offensive lineman, Joe blow.
And it's like, you know, you need those people.
Exactly.
But just that excitement part before you want that guy that you know something about and you've read about in your magazines and things like that.
That's a big part of this whole thing is that entertainment value.
Wouldn't you say, Dean?
Oh yeah, for sure.
I mean, there's always going to be higher projections.
There's always going to be guys who really pound the table for these past catchers, for these running backs, for these guys who, you know, score the touchdowns.
But I mean,
Good it comes as historically built in the trenches and built on that back into the defense and that is something that often wins championships.
I mean, look at how the lion set themselves up.
They built that great offensive line and now they're super bowl contenders perennially.
And I think, I think it could be fine either way.
I think love needs weapons.
I also think love needs a good foundation to build off of.
He can't do all the work himself.
He's a great quarterback, but he's not the only guy on the field, you know?
Absolutely.
Do you think there's gonna be any surprises?
It seems like teams have gotten a little more conservative over the years.
Like, I mean, they invest so much time, so much effort, so many miles, so many hours to really study these guys, to the minutiae of these guys.
But it's one of those things, you know, that all, when they really got their hearts set on the guy, it takes a real sweetheart deal to move off of some of these guys, especially at the last minute, wouldn't you agree?
Oh, 100%.
Yeah, I don't know if we're going to see any big time trade ups in the top 10.
I mean, this is the first year in what, like 30 years that we haven't had a first round trade before the draft has started.
It just seems like this is a really good depth class and it's all, but it's not as packed with that top end talent.
I wouldn't expect to see many trade downs or trade ups, if any, in that first round, just based on how much that depth class is stacked.
And people are going to want to get these, you know, maybe it's not a star on their team, but they're going to get like some solid
Low end to mid to your starters throughout the draft and I don't see a lot of teams willing to cart ways of those picks,
I mean, there's this whole salary cap thing What do you think about carving out the quarterback having that be really not part of the salary cap letting that be a separate entity and then having salary caps for the rest of the team I mean, that's been I
think I
an interesting strategy for sure.
I I would
I mean, you have to consider the quarterback in the cards.
But I mean, if you have a star quarterback, like Mahomes, they gave all of that money to Mahomes and it's worked out perfectly for them.
They've been in the Super Bowl like, what, four out of five last five years?
You got to, if you got to pay these stud quarterbacks, what do you want to give them?
But
It is something you have to consider because otherwise you end up like the saints in cap hell where you don't have the money to pay for these top end quarterbacks.
Even if you get one on a rookie contract, he's going to be out five years on the deal.
Like you got to make sure you're paying attention.
But I do understand if you've got that star, like the Mahomes, like the hurt, like guys who can take to those championships carving out a hole for him.
I understand it.
Obviously, Dean, you know, pretty much every player that's out there, it's going to be drafted this year.
Just in watching the Packers possibly casually, you know the way you have it being in Philly only got to see him twice last year If you were going against the Packers, you know if you if you scouted the Packers and saw their flaws, what would you say they needed?
Sorry, let's see could you repeat that?
I am not hearing you.
Oh, I'm sorry.
You still there Dean
Oh We lost you.
Well last Dean phone went down.
All right
Okay, we'll get back to him.
Dean Bruce from Lindy Sports, the guru of the NFL draft guide.
Those are always fun to read.
Actually, you know, it's actually, you know, it's a lot more fun because I save those.
I've got those from years past.
It's fun reading about some guys who are so hyped and then just,
And when do they start?
And do they hire people to do that?
Oh, God, like Tony Mandrich.
Remember, I think he was on, was it Jay Leonard or was it Johnny Carson?
Letterman or Letterman?
Just unbelievable.
The then.
You know, like you said, it just didn't pan out.
How much of that does that really affect it?
Does it
nowadays?
Everybody's got it.
Tony was one of the first people ever to have an entourage, so
speak.
the biggest guys with Tony and he was his brother who kind of steered him the
wrong
way.
I don't know if that's going on anymore.
Dean, you're back there, buddy.
Yes, sorry about
that.
No problem having some phone problems this morning.
No problem Dean Bruce Lindy Sports Magazine We were just talking about the over-hype of some guys over the year Dean Do you think that that you know it like we're talking about Tony Mander?
She was actually a really great friend of ours.
He comes on the show I used to hang out with them all those things.
He's genuinely a really nice guy.
Do you?
Yeah
Do you think guys actually do hurt themselves in those pre draft interviews?
Or do you think that's a little bit BS?
And it's like, Hey, if this guy runs the four to eight and he might be a little bit of a whatever, whatever versus some guy that runs the four six that otherwise they're going to still take that four to eight guy, aren't they?
I mean, they overlook some warts.
Wouldn't you agree?
Oh, yeah, 100%.
I mean, there are teams that really play into their.
play into their interviews.
Like I think the Bengals really take a lot of interviews into account, although it didn't work with that Jermaine Burton fella.
But there's a lot of teams that take interviews into account, but the teams that tend to succeed, but she's the end like the lines and stuff like that.
They have taken guys, these character concerns in the past and it's worked out for them because a lot at the end of the day, a lot of these guys are just here to play football.
They're trying to get a team that.
you know, can beat these corners down the field with their speed.
They can beat these guys with their strength.
If you're going to get a stronger, faster player and you think you can manage some of those character concerns, you take him because that's going to make you a better football squad.
It's not always about personality for these guys.
Who do you?
Dean, we have two minutes here.
We're first set to a quick break.
Who do you see?
You know, obviously, Mel Kuiper has made a career out of, you know, doing what he does, but there have been so many more that have come after him.
Who do you give a lot of credibility to?
Oh, in the draft, I love Todd McShay.
I think, I mean, I think Mel Kuyper is one of the like legends of the game.
I love Dane Bruegler, the beast.
He's sort of, you know, super charged our Lindy's guy, like sort of a guy I take a lot of inspiration from when I'm making my journalism, like my Lindy's guy, just his beast articles.
He just does them so perfectly.
I always trust Dane Bruegler.
I'll watch Mel Kuyper when he's on.
He has his misses, but he's been in the game for so long.
You got to respect it.
and probably Todd McShea.
I mean, he's just a great guy.
He's just been an inspiration for a lot of scouting columns.
So I think, I think those three are who I look out for when projecting because they seem to know, they seem to know what's up and they seem to always, you know, have a finger on the pulse.
Dean Bruce, can you stick around for one minute?
We've got some more questions about the draft.
It's the last shot we got at somebody like you.
Is that cool?
Yeah, sounds good.
Dean Bruce, Lindy Sports draft guide, the preview located at bosses down on Broadway in Green Bay.
If you got any questions for him, you text him to us.
We've got more with him right after this.
It's a celebration.
Celebrate good times
Hey, welcome back.
Mine or the Mayor here, 97.9 FM, WGBW 98.3, 96.5 FM.
Coming away from Appleton and Oshkosh and of course the Civic Media app worldwide.
So we're going back to Philadelphia.
Dean Bruce Lindy Sports Draft.
Preview magazine and is the Bible for their draft coming up this week.
I'm
still
here.
I'm right here.
No, he means in Green Bay.
Are you coming to Green Bay?
Oh, of course not.
I can't make it out there.
I'd love to.
I'm gonna be at the draft in Pittsburgh next year, but I guess I'd love to be there.
it's a little low.
I think it's because there's a lot of uncertainty in that quarterback position We saw Jackson dart drop out of being in attendance for the draft early and he would have been nice to come to Green Bay and should or Sanders is staying home with his family right and a lot of those flashy guys They want our quarterbacks, right?
but Jim, I'll tell you something.
I think it's because some of the guys don't want to be embarrassed.
Wouldn't you agree?
I think
that's why Jackson Dart dropped out.
I think he got word that he wasn't going to be picked in the first round.
And I think he was like, well, I don't want to be that guy who gets posted on Twitter.
stuck in the green room.
It never goes away.
Like I was telling the story the other day, Brady Quinn's sister became a really great friend of mine.
Of all the parts.
She did a lot of things for charity here.
And of course, married to A.J.
Hawke.
And I joked with her
one
time where it's like, I remember when
when, you know, as close on the, the lion's around the clock, boy, Brady Quinn, a lot of rumors.
He's going, and his girlfriend was like sitting right next to him, cuddled up.
You didn't get shredded.
She was a little further away and then a little further away.
And then all of a sudden she wasn't in a picture anymore.
Oh gosh.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
But what, Dean, heading into something like this, you give me some guys, you put together a great draft guide.
You tell us guys to look for that might go up or might go down.
might go up.
I would say James Pierce Jr.
I know there's been some character concerns about him, but he ran a 4-4-3 at the combine, something like that as an edge rusher.
He's a little light in the pants, but I think he's one of those guys who those moves, the past rush moves are just so impeccable in his speed.
He wins so quickly.
I think he could be a pretty consistent late, like Ryzer into that mid first round.
uh... another guy who i have my eyes on the writer i would say is uh... jaden higgins and i was statewide receiver uh... he's a big body guy who still get separation really good with the contested catches but he fast enough to work not like you know we're not thinking about some of those like i'm trying to think of like kevin white and stuff like that like the big draft bus the big tall guy to tend to bust our he's a little different from them because he's still got that separation the guy who i think maybe trending downward
i think you will you'll be sure to understand or follow a little further than expected i think at point he was drafted in the top ten but i think he's probably going to land land somewhere in the twenties maybe even a trade-up in the back half of the first what i don't know if his arm strength is i don't know if the arm strength is there he's he's got the nfl bloodline and he's got the accuracy but teams will have a big arm
And he just doesn't quite have it.
What about as far as just the whole package that comes with it, like Dian was saying that there are some cities he doesn't want to play in and this and that, um, turning people off.
I think maybe,
I mean, it's, it's again, it's how we talk about with those interviews.
If he's a guy who you love, you love his traits, you have the accuracy.
But you, you don't want to always have that family package.
You don't want to see coach prime breathing down your neck as a head coach.
You might be inclined to fight against them just to save your job because he's the right.
You don't want that attached to your name.
I mean, it wouldn't shock me if some teams were fighting against them because they don't want the circus around it.
I mean, New York media, especially like, I think that's part of why the giants aren't as high on them as maybe he could be.
Do you stick around to the end?
Are you these last guys?
I always, you know, for those of us who are runners, but not real good runners, it's always nice to see the guy finish, you know, the marathon, you know, towards the end in the five, five and a half hours.
Do you state, do you cover these guys at the end?
The last, where'd it go to 300?
Was it
323?
256, I think.
You cover those last six guys.
I'll watch them all.
I mean, I've had to watch them all for this magazine.
I've covered, I covered, I think...
of we were doing a, we did a little bit of a split this year, but I think I covered around 150 guys and not all those guys are going to be the top 150.
So I might as well stick around, see some of the guys that I fell in love with, who maybe the NFL isn't as in on going that like six seventh round.
I mean, it's, it's part of my life.
It's a big passion of mine and one of my top hobbies.
So I might as well, I might as well see it through, you know, for Green Bay to have that experience to get to stick around, see it for that full 72 hours.
We got a safety at Wisconsin, I think could turn out to be a sleeper.
Oh, yeah.
Hunter Woller.
I am exactly in your boat.
Yeah.
I think he's very good.
I think he's a great player.
I think he's very instinctual.
He's got some really great tackling reps.
There's another guy from Wisconsin.
I like Joe Huber, an offensive guard.
I think you could look out for his name to be called in the sixth or seventh, and he might surprise you.
He's got some really good strengths.
He's got some of that Wisconsin farm boy strength, you know what I'm
saying?
Yeah.
And those are the kids that have made it big.
It's those big linemen like that.
Like we had one couple of years ago, Bartolini from Wisconsin, right here in Kiwani, and he's
I mean, he was a great pickup for the Colts.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He was an incredible athlete.
So number one thing we're winding down here, but Dean, heading into this, you're, I mean, it's an old saying that your grandpa goes, but your juices still flowing when you go into this.
Or is it more of, it's what I do for a living.
And this is that.
I got a feeling you get pretty pumped for this.
Yeah.
Oh, I get
pretty pumped.
I mean, it's one of the biggest sports events of the year for me.
It may be the biggest sports event of the year for me.
It's my Super Bowl.
I mean, I do a lot of work for it.
I do a lot of work writing down these players and all that.
But, you know, it's the culmination of all that.
It's the culmination of all this hard work, and it makes my blood flow.
I mean, I hate to admit it, but I might care about it more than the Super Bowl some years, depending on who's in it.
Got to just sell one more at you.
Cam Ward.
number one pick easy.
I think block it in and I think he's going to be a good number one pick.
His confidence and poise is just impeccable.
You can't you can't pass up on a guy who can sling it that far with pressure in his face.
It's it's going to be he's going to be battle tested in the NFL and he's going to do great with it.
Travis Hunter.
Travis Hunter also great should play two ways if he's not playing two ways you're misusing him.
Another kid I really like.
Two kids I really like.
I don't hear much.
Well the kid the running back from Boise State.
Ashton Junty.
Walk him in as a Jaguar.
I'm a Jaguar fan.
I've been hearing we really like him.
And the running back from ASU, my alma mater.
Cam Scattaboo.
Yeah, I mean, I think he's probably going to be around third round, maybe even second round type, but he's going to drag some guys with him.
He's not the fastest, but he may have the best contact balance up there with Junty.
And he'll
be the guy you don't want
to practice again because he'll stick you in the chest with his head every time.
Oh, God, it'll hurt playing against him.
Don't worry about it.
Dean Bruce, you're awesome.
How can we find all of your stuff?
You can find our YouTube channel.
I've got a YouTube channel going called Two Minute Drill.
You can look me up there.
You can also follow me on Instagram and Twitter at DeanIsTired.
And you can find the Lindy's Rap Guide in any bookstore near you.
I know you've got a local bookstore that carries
it.
Well, you're going to keep pumping that for you, buddy.
Thank you so much for all your insight and take the time.
We truly appreciate it.
I'm happy to be here.
Have a good one.
Thanks, buddy.
Dean Bruce, Lindy Sports, draft guru, draft guide, picking up at bosses in deep here.
Quick break back right after this.
For WGBW and WISS News, I'm Lisa Hale.
If the thing keeping you from going to the NFL Draft near Lambeau Field this week is the drive, the traffic, and the thought of trying to park, the Fox Cities Convention and Visitors Bureau has the solution, said Pam Seidel, Executive Director of the
CVB.
Everybody knows where Fox River Mall is.
They've given us the whole section of their parking lot.
We've got six coach buses, real easy trip up, you know, on both Thursday and Friday.
And
the shuttle service will cost $60 round trip.
To reserve your shuttle seat from the Fox River Mall to the draft and back, visit foxcities.org or see our story at wgbw.fm for links.
One person died in an Easter fire in Oshkosh.
Oshkosh fire officials say they were called to a structure fire on Burdick Street.
In their initial search, one resident was found and taken to the local hospital where he was pronounced dead.
The home had another resident, but they were not there at the time of the fire, which remains under
investigation.
Can AI help people with opioid addiction?
Joanne Krulatz has that answer.
A new artificial intelligence tool developed by UW Madison could streamline care for people battling opioid use.
The AI tool was able to identify hospitalized adults at risk for opioid use disorder and recommend them to addiction specialists.
The tool can scan clinical notes, medical history, and other health records in seconds for patterns associated with opioid use.
A study funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute on Drug Abuse Used Data for More Than 51,000 Hospitalized Adults, 727 of whom completed addiction medicine consultations.
I'm Lisa Hale for WGBW and WISS News.
For news anytime, visit civicmedia.us.
Hey, thank you very much.
Welcome back, my non-mer.
Special thanks to Dean Bruce from the Lindy Sports, the 2025 draft guide, Brittany Merlo, civic media meteorologist, giving us that forecast for this coming week, which is okay, we will take it.
And now we're being joined by Andrew Zimdar's GPS education partners.
Good morning, Andrew.
Good morning.
Did I pronounce your last name correct?
Yes or no?
Yes, you did.
All right.
Zimdar's.
I'd like that.
What nationality is that?
I'm going to say Dutch.
So we tracked it back.
I believe it's Polish.
Oh, it is Polish.
Yeah, there's actually a town in Poland that's unincorporated that is Zimdar Z with an E on the end.
I was
going to say, has that been changed then from the time you
came over?
Someday I'll return in glory and go back to that city.
But there's a town in that name
where you got to go back there,
don't
you?
How far
back?
My grandpa actually grew up in Depeere.
and has been here for a while, but I'm not sure how many generations back.
Have you done the genealogy type stuff?
My grandparents have, yeah.
I often unpack that someday.
I think that's cool,
man.
I'm fascinated by
that
stuff.
Yeah, so my original training was as a teacher.
I taught in a parochial school for a while with all the subjects, and then I was an English teacher for a while as well.
Which parochial school?
It was in Milwaukee.
I was in Savior Lutheran.
Shout out if anybody down there is listening.
But I was at Walkshawn North as well.
And there were students in the classroom that, as much as I tried to engage them, my English curriculum was never going to be their jam, right?
and they wanted to work with their hands.
They thrived in the TechEd shop classes.
And so it was kind of always wondering, like, how do I reach those kids?
And it wasn't until I found this program that I could kind of tangibly do that.
I'm a huge advocate for what you're talking about, but go ahead
Yeah, yeah, so our organization is 25 years old It was founded by actually by generak Back in 2000 with the idea that they were at that time in the walk-shall area trying to get more kids interested and engaged and exposed to careers of manufacturing and
wanting to do that the high school age ranges so that as students graduated high school they were ready to go into the careers and fill the talent pipeline that Generac had.
Fast forward now we're our own non-profits still very much supported by Generac but the idea is changing the four walls of how kids see school.
and making it more engaging and relevant and matching the career path these kids see.
So what we do is we run what are called education centers, which are literally classrooms embedded within a manufacturing facility.
And students then go to school with us part of the day.
They get more of a technical curriculum and a career readiness like coaching.
Can I just jump in on that?
Just
one quick thing about that.
My era, Jim's era.
It was like, wow, if you didn't go to a four-year college, you're not as cool as the rest of us.
That has turned 180 degrees, because now these tech schools, for one thing, have become so much more attuned to what we need out there in the real world that they've become so popular right now.
And another caveat, if I'm correct or if I'm wrong, cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching.
People are walking away with there with some really nice, well-paying jobs and careers.
I just want to throw that out
there.
Yeah.
So the career gap between teaching and what I'm doing now is I worked in higher ed for eight years.
And you can see student loan debt through the system.
And it was shocking how much student loan debt was there.
And as a millennial, we all went to college because that was the next thing you did.
Exactly.
And we went for the experience and then tried to figure out what we were going to do as part of that.
And I think what we're trying to do, and a lot of educators are trying to do is help students see that there's a path that doesn't have to involve going to a four-year college, technical college, or working right out of high school is very acceptable and still great paying jobs.
And you can always go back to college if you want to continue.
Love it.
To get a job.
I mean, I tell you, that does happen.
But your schools, it's different because you're catching them earlier than all that minutiae that they have gone through.
So when they're a junior, do they apply to your program?
Do you seek them out?
Do you notice them when they're freshmen, sophomores?
And hey, look, I take a look at this.
Yeah.
So the schools we partner with in the Fox cities,
We work a lot with the counselors and they tend to see students where there's an engagement or maybe attendance or just a struggle with traditional school.
But those kids might be thriving in their shop classes, right?
And so we myself start to talk with those counselors and say, who are those students?
Let's talk to them.
And then the students apply and then they'll start to enter the program their junior or senior year.
Typically it's junior year for two years and then they'll finish out their high school.
with us.
Okay, this is something when I interviewed this lady one time and she was living in Germany during World War II and then the Russians came in, all right?
They were just citizens, you know, just normal Russians came in, took all these girls, brought them to these camps.
So to speak, and I thought, oh my god, that's terrible.
Well, actually, it was kind of nice.
I mean, we're fed.
We were whatever, whatever.
And then they gave them all kinds of tests.
And whatever they were really scored highest on, they put them in schools for that.
Her and her sister, by chance, were great singer, dancer, entertainers that her entire career, her entire life, was a singer and a dancer.
Another kid was really good at math.
He became an engineer.
Now, again, we're talking about this.
So I'm sitting here.
almost embracing the Soviet system of doing things in the 1940s.
I don't mean to come off weird in that way, but I thought that had a lot of merit.
What do you think about that?
So when we get the students in the program, part of what we do is the other half of the day after they're done with their more technical curriculum with us at the Education Center is we place them in a youth apprenticeship and we spend the first
month to two months with these kids and what we call road to employability.
And what that is is we're trying to teach them employability skills for when they enter the workforce, what's going to be expected of them, how they're going to be successful.
But the other part of it is, is really figuring out like what does that kid like to do, where their aptitudes, their interests, and then how does that match up with the businesses that we partner with, where we place them for youth apprenticeship, so that there's a good match there in terms of how they're wired and how they're going to be successful.
See, I
As long as they get that well-rounded education, I agree that half, and you say half the day is spent in this track that we'll call it that, on technical skills, because they're great at it in the school they're in now, and you really focus on that.
But the other half they still learn, you know, the history and English and things that, I guess you just need sciences, whether you're gonna use that every day or not, you just need to know that to, that just, like I said, be part of the mainstream.
These kids then, do they,
Do they then give up the band and sports, the extracurricular, or do you weave that into your program?
Great question.
So what's really unique about our program is the schools that partner with us take on our curriculum as a pathway to graduation.
I just want to
reintroduce you, Andrew.
Andrew Zimnar's GPS Education Partners.
Correct.
Go ahead.
Yeah, so when the students enter the program, they maintain their status at their home high school.
So when they graduate, they get their diploma from the high school that's sponsoring them.
And so as part of that, they maintain their ability to do sports, extracurriculars.
In fact, we encourage that because we want them to continue to maintain that connection to the home high school and the activity.
Social aspect.
Yeah, exactly.
Yep.
Candidly for a lot of our students, they just want to be kind of done with traditional school and just enter the workforce and do that part of it.
But for those students where
you know, sports or whatever it might be still are really important to them.
We work around that schedule to make sure they can still do those things.
Yep.
So the youth apprenticeship, we partner with businesses that see a match with the mission and the model of what we're trying to do.
And then also kind of want that matchmaking process of finding that the kid that they're getting.
for the youth apprenticeship is the right fit for what they're looking for.
And then as part of the program, everything that's happening in the classroom, we would like for them to see in the job, right?
So there's kind of a holistic learning there.
And then vice versa, everything that's happening on the job, we want to actively communicate with those businesses on what's going on so that we can then coach and teach that in the classroom too.
So perfect example, we'll hear a lot of times from the businesses we partner with that, you know, students shift starts at eight o'clock.
and they're showing up at eight o'clock.
So then in the classroom, we're coaching them on, hey, you need to be clocked in at 7.50 so that you're at your station by eight o'clock to start working.
So those are the relationships we have with the businesses to learn what's going on.
May I just ask this
gently?
Absolutely.
Again, I'm not throwing out the generation X's or Y's or millennia, but something has happened a little bit over the years where
Younger kids not saying all of them, but in general great kids super kids, but Sometimes there just seems to be a little bit of a laissez-faire attitude towards that other job.
Am I correct?
It's funny as I've gotten older.
I'm being gentle and asking that question
I started, you know making comments and I'm like, oh man.
I'm not get off my long guy, right?
But um, I think it's
I think with everything we have to remember and I have to remind myself that these are 16, 17, 18 year old kids.
They don't know what they don't know.
We have years and years of experience professionally and with life and whatnot.
And so part of this program that's awesome is it's a way, low stakes way for kids to practice and learn.
why a good internship, we've both, a good internship is as valuable as anything.
Right.
And
so we always say there's not, no bad kids, maybe some bad parents out there, but, I mean, they have to learn this from someone and whether you or the internship or what you're teaching in these soft skills, you know, they know the technical things.
I want to talk about these kids that graduate.
Are they then encouraged?
to go on for another two years, I think that's really important because there's a lot of statistics that if you go for two years, you've got benefits, you're gonna make more money, high school graduation is great, but that's really just the first step.
Yeah, so this time of year, this is perfect time of year to talk about this, we are starting to have those active coaching conversations with our students about where they're at and is their business gonna offer them a full-time job?
A few years ago, it was a guarantee.
It's not necessarily a guarantee that every company has openings right now that, so that's part of the coaching, right?
But as part of that, we then start to get them to think about, okay, staying at that business, you've built up some attendance and skill set at that business.
So let's stay there, but then let's also think about going on and continuing your education at the technical college.
maybe being a registered apprentice, that kind of thing.
Okay, Andrew Zimdar's GPS education partners.
Can you stick around?
We got more.
I want
to know if somebody was in high school right now
parents listening.
How do I get involved
program?
What's the grassroots aspect of it and go from there?
All right.
Outstanding Andrew Zimmar's GPS education partners are also known as Zimdar ski for our friends listening in Poland.
Back after this.
To find you