About HirePaths

2026 Update

HirePaths first launched in 2021 as a Kansas-based marketing campaign to introduce children and families to high-demand careers. In 2025, we became an independent, nonprofit 501(c)3 corporation and formed a board of directors. Despite a new organizational structure, our mission stays the same: to connect today’s young people to high-demand careers. 

Since 2021, we’ve brought career exploration content to millions of young people through social media, HirePaths.com, our YouTube channel and Kansas PBS member stations. We’ve developed partnerships with educators and youth program leaders who bring our materials to the students they teach and serve, and we’ve worked across industry sectors with businesses and professionals to highlight amazing jobs available in our home state.

Now, in 2026, we’re building partnerships to take our work nationwide. We’re currently seeking funders to help us produce content across the United States so we can reinforce national efforts to combat our shrinking workforce and ensure our country can produce a talent pipeline aligned with our most critical careers. Check out our investor summary here. 

We’re looking to streamline and focus on the most popular parts of our program — Cool Careers episodes and Career Hunt events. Starting in fall 2026, we intend to become a national youth media brand producing Cool Careers USA, a weekly show during the school year that will offer educators an accompanying packet of materials to enrich classroom career exploration efforts. (These will be similar to the Cool Careers episodes we’ve been producing in Kansas since 2021.) We’re also exploring how to scale up our Career Hunt events and make them accessible to more communities nationwide. 

We plan to become a trusted career exploration partner that reinforces and supports the efforts of educators, parents and other influential adults who are guiding and advising the next generation as they decide which path to follow on their post-high school career journey. 

Ultimately, we want to decrease workforce shortages and help the United States remain competitive globally. Along the way, we aim to fill hundreds of thousands of high-demand jobs that would otherwise go unfilled while also helping hundreds of thousands of young people to establish well-paying, marketable careers.

If you’ve been using this website in your classroom or with your children, thank you! Most of the features will remain the same for a while we’re redefining ourselves for our next chapter. Eventually, some features will change, but lots of new, exciting content will appear in their place. Watch our social media channels for updates. 

Please connect with our executive director, Kristin Brighton, to learn more about how your organization can partner with us as we pursue this new path. Reach Kristin at [email protected].