Strategic Workforce Development for the Light-Based Technology Sector
Join us in pioneering a nationwide approach to workforce development, addressing the growing demands of the optics, photonics, imaging, and laser industries.
Building Workforce Training Communities
HOLISTIC + STRATEGIC + EQUITABLE
FocusPath LLC is a workforce consulting and educational services company that designs and implements programs to recruit, train, and retain the nation’s next generation skilled workforce – uniting all members of regional ecosystems under a shared strategy that keeps the needs of the community front and center.
FocusPath addresses the workforce development challenge head-on, in a holistic, innovative, and strategic manner based on the belief that only when each contributor to workforce training in a community is operating in its happiest and most efficient and collaborative manner will real change happen.
Workforce Training Community Model
FocusPath assesses each group’s ability to contribute to the building of a skilled technician workforce and works with the ecosystem as a whole to enhance collaboration and regional impact.
Regional ecosystems are the basis of every workforce development initiative underway today. The ecosystem model requires a lead training provider, an industry cluster representing member companies in need of technicians, and a group of community-based nonprofits and government agencies that provide support services. To work most productively, this model requires all of its contributors to be functioning well on their own, while collaborating seamlessly with each other in an integrated, mutually beneficial way.
The FocusPath approach looks at each of the members of a workforce training community and asks: Is each member group thriving and set up for growth? What about their current reality is a barrier to that growth? Do the groups know how to collaborate effectively? How can the barriers to growth and collaboration be solved?
By answering these questions, the resulting regional ecosystem will be better able to adopt a cooperative culture and be able to implement new models for training technicians, educating engineers, and recruiting STEM teachers and lab instructors.
FocusPath Service Areas
The following services are designed to provide value to regional ecosystems, individual colleges and training providers, and individual companies or industry cluster organizations. Contact us to discuss your specific needs and a customized cost proposal will be prepared.
Assessment & Planning
For regional consortiums seeking to achieve alignment between the hiring needs of industry and the capacity of training program providers.
Ecosystem Readiness Audit
A custom service that assesses a region’s strengths and shows how to synchronize key community groups under a shared workforce development strategy.
Technician Skills Assessment
Skilled technicians are key for OPIL manufacturers to build capacity. Find out what skill sets – durable and technical – your technicians need to power-up your production line.
Training Program Tune-Up
Ideal for colleges that have adopted a “jobs-for-all” mindset, this service helps all departments work together to engage with industry and to ensure that every student enters a career path successfully.
Technician Training Programs
For OPIL manufacturers and supply chain partners needing to hire skilled technicians to grow their production capacity and increase innovation.
Training the New Technician
Find out the “when, where, and how” of training new hires and bring your entire team up-to-speed with the skills they need to support production goals.
Upskilling Your Best Technicians
Expanding the performance of your best technicians expands production capacity. Learn how to do both by finding the right-fit training programs from a growing number of options – in-house, in the region, and online.
Maximizing Production Teams
On the production floor or across the entire company, employees who have a 360° view of the overall operation build bridges within and across teams and catalyze innovation. Learn how your OPIL company can make this happen.
Community Outreach & Marketing
For any group eager to grow its technician workforce in advanced manufacturing industries and recruit students into training programs.
Building an OPIL Ambassador Corps
Few people know about optics manufacturing, including those in economic development. Learn how to coordinate communications and outreach to build a team of OPIL Career Navigators in your region.
Recruiting People into Technician Training Programs
A workshop for collegiate admissions, marketing, and career services teams to gain an understanding of the optics industry and how to recruit future technicians into their training programs. Participants will learn about the wealth of available assets that can be used to augment the student recruitment effort into an optics – or any advanced manufacturing – training program.
Collaboration is our super-power.
Contact us today.
Alexis Vogt, PhD
Josanne DeNatale
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© FocusPath LLC 2025