IRON MOUNTAIN — How do you address the critical talent shortage in cybersecurity, grow a cybersecurity ecosystem in the Upper Peninsula, and keep young talent?

If you’re Evan Rice – senior vice president of Guide Star, an Iron Mountain company providing security and technology services – you enlist the help of Upper Peninsula Michigan Works! (UPMW) to assemble a team of stakeholders to address the issue. Evan identified the high school Career and Technical Education (CTE) Computer Networking and Security Program at the Dickinson-Iron Intermediate School District (DIISD).

Led by master teacher Jonathan Gregg, the DIISD program and routinely places high school students in Work-Based Learning (WBL) assignments with employers throughout the Iron Mountain-Kingsford community. Evan envisioned using that talent pool to establish Michigan’s first high school Youth Registered Apprenticeship Program (YRAP). It would meet his growing talent needs while also providing his colleagues in the cybersecurity industry with a template to develop similar programs throughout Michigan.

Thanks to a grant from Michigan’s Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity (LEO), UPMW was able to facilitate the development of the YRAP by establishing a partnership between Guide Star, the DIISD and their constituent school districts, Bay de Noc Community College and their DIISD/Bay Early College program, the Upper Peninsula Cyber Institute (UPCI) of Northern Michigan University, and national partners CareerWise USA, Jobs For the Future (JFF), and the USDOL Cybersecurity Youth Apprenticeship Initiative. UPMW serves as a third-party intermediary of Registered Apprenticeship to U.P. businesses who are interested in establishing apprenticeship programs but do not have the time or resources to develop their own programs.

Months of planning went into the development of the YRAP to meet the standards established by the Department of Labor (DOL) for Registered Apprenticeship Programs. Step one was identifying the key skill sets of the competency-based program and developing the cutting-edge curriculum needed to meet the current cybersecurity threat landscape faced by Michigan’s small-to-medium business community. Combining the robust On-the-Job Training (OJT) and exemplary Related Technical Instruction (RTI) that characterize Registered Apprenticeships, Guide Star and the DIISD provide students with the best career preparation possible.

Six DIISD students were selected as the first cohort of cybersecurity technicians and are currently employed in a paid, pre-apprenticeship experience that will prepare them to continue up the career ladder. Developing a customer service mindset, interpersonal skills, and problem-solving abilities are at the heart of this first rung of the ladder. Students will progress on to Customer Service/Help Desk positions as the first level of the YRAP. When they are ready, they will progress on to basic cybersecurity threat analysis and remediation and will eventually become key members of Guide Star’s Blue Team, addressing the most serious cyber threats.

Guide Star’s program is an extension of the Upper Peninsula’s collaborative efforts to grow a cybersecurity ecosystem in the U.P. and to keep our young talent by providing high school students with purposeful learning through real-world work experiences with incredible opportunities.

Giving U.P. employers the opportunity to develop relationships with our young talent will further ensure that we address the issue of talent loss which threatens the economy of the U.P.

Upper Peninsula Michigan Works! celebrated this partnership and the approval of Michigan’s first high school Youth Registered Apprenticeship Program in cybersecurity with an event recently. The celebration, hosted at the Pine Mountain Resort in Iron Mountain, featured the six students who made up the first cohort of high school cybersecurity technicians and all the partners who have contributed to this incredible opportunity.