Courtesy Photo Executive Director of the Economic Generator Network Tom Berriman is pictured in this courtesy photo.

ALPENA — The Economic Generator Network wants to provide high school students in Northeast Michigan access to an exciting new program that aims to give them the tools and experience they need to enter the workforce with the recent announcement of the Northeast Michigan Creating Entrepreneurial Opportunities — or CEO — program.

“They develop real business skills and gain hands-on experience, learning how to run a business from those that are currently doing it within our community,” Tom Berriman, executive director of the Economic Generator Network, said. “It’ll not only be the first of its kind in Northeast Michigan, it’ll be the first of its kind in the entire state of Michigan.”

The CEO program is slated to start accepting students in fall 2024.

According to Berriman, the CEO program will take the form of a dual enrollment course for juniors and seniors, constructed by the Economic Generator Network in collaboration with Alpena Community College. The course will see kids work with local businesses to understand how to develop and run a business as well as provide those students with employable skills.

Berriman believes that a program like CEO is needed in Northeast Michigan not only to provide students looking at the workforce or wanting more hands-on experience before college with a way to develop their skills, but also act as a way to help bolster local communities and retain talent.

“I felt this program is needed here because we need to have an opportunity to work with students to teach them skills, to have them build relationships with local businesses, to connect them with leaders in the community, ” Berriman said. “So then, when/if they go to college or whatever, they come back to our region and want to stay here.”

According to data based on surveys collected from participants in CEO programs from other states, students who said they planned on staying or returning to their local communities after completing the program went from 40% to 70%.

Right now, the program is still in its early stages. A CEO board needs to be finalized, deals with local businesses need to be made, and local investors need to be obtained to fund the program.

“That’s really the phase that we’re starting to transition into,” Berriman said. “Once the board for the CEO program is completed, we will start to reach out to local businesses to not only gain participants who would like to work with these students but also to gain local investors for this program.”