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MARK BRODIE: The Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce is trying to help certain Valley companies find a new pipeline of workers by connecting them with high school students.
The ElevateEdAZ program focuses on high-demand industries, including advanced manufacturing, construction, financial services, health sciences, and IT. Isabel Gonzalez, vice president of ElevateEdAZ, says the goal is to close that talent gap many of these companies are facing.
ISABEL GONZALEZ: What we’re trying to do is connect more employers who say they’re struggling to connect, identify and retain talent. And we’re sort of helping them with the solution and acting as a single point of contact or entry point with tapping into high school talent.
MARK BRODIE: Gonzalez says this is a talent development strategy as well as an economic development one. She says Arizona has talented high school students, but that they might not know about certain industries, even if they’re looking to hire.
ISABEL GONZALEZ: We really think about making sure that while we are seeing a lot of folks come into Arizona and we’re importing a lot of talent, we really want to grow our own and make sure that our employer current and prospective businesses that want to come into the state can see a plan and systems in place that help develop the talent that they need.
MARK BRODIE: ElevateEdAZ is currently working with more than 20 schools and about 100 businesses, including the one owned by Rick Stone. He’s the founder and CEO of S Stone Solutions and Research Collective, which does human-centered design focused on applied research, development, and system optimization. For example, his firm would think about how a soldier might interact with their equipment and how that can be done more safely and efficiently.
Stone stopped by the studios earlier, and I asked how long his company has been working with the ElevateEdAZ program.
RICK STONE: We started fall 2025. Brought on two interns spring of 2025. We grew that cohort, added another intern, and they were all focused on human systems engineering and software testing.
MARK BRODIE: What appealed to you about bringing in high school students to do this?
RICK STONE: I thought it was a great way to support the community. I’m from Phoenix originally, and I would have loved the opportunity to have the ability to go to a company and learn these kind of skills, learn these new types of engineering. So, the kids that I had come in for that 2025 cohort were software and aerospace. They’d never heard of human systems or human factors, so for them to get exposed to that and see how it ties into their specialties was extremely novel and something that, for me, I find personally gratifying. I mean, you know, I have a daughter who’s also in high school now, and I’d love for her to have opportunities like that. Unfortunately, her school isn’t part of the program — and then I have a younger son who maybe in the future his school will be part of that program and we can keep growing. But I think it’s critical for these kids to have the ability to work in, you know, an organization, see how they fit inside the machine, and then how, even though they are an intern, they are having an impact on the output of that organization.
MARK BRODIE: Did you find that they were beneficial to your company?
RICK STONE: A hundred percent. So, for this cohort, I had them do a lot of human factors work, so they did a lot of interviews and design. So, I had them interview several user types. It helped with their ability to, you know, speak publicly, to not be afraid to ask questions. And then I had them make designs of a new software. We had already been making the software, so we already had something that was pretty far down. We’ve been, you know, at that stage at a pilot working on it.
At the final event for their cohort in the spring 2026 before they graduated, they presented their design, and we invited their families to come see it. And some of their designs were something we never thought of, and that we actually took those components and put it into the core software that we flushed out. And that’s, you know, partially because they’re high school students. They’re not afraid to ask those questions. They’re going to ask questions that maybe an adult might think is obvious, and they’re getting these different perspectives, these kind of new way of looking at things that can really bring a fresh set of eyes to whatever project they’re working on.
MARK BRODIE: Have you brought on more interns for 2026?
RICK STONE: Yes. So, this current cohort, I have three students, and I’m probably going to keep the same three for the fall and spring. And they’re all seniors in high school.
MARK BRODIE: So, do you find that in general you have trouble finding workers, like for your company or specifically or broadly in your field?
RICK STONE: Yes and no. Where I see the ElevateEd really being helpful for the workforce as a whole is when you bring on employees fresh out of university who don’t have that experience, there’s a lot of things that just aren’t taught in school. So, having these kids go through, and then when they graduate college, assuming they take, you know, no other internships, I feel like they’re going to be much better prepared even just basic, I’d say office etiquette.
You know, they learn very early on: don’t call your boss, “Bro.” … Things like that. You know, it’s funny, but you see college kids doing it. When they finished, they were, you know, very professional. They learned how to speak and make a point without fear of being rejected, and that’s what I find difficult to find in younger people sometimes where, you know, they’re so kind of nervous or they don’t know how to have those interactions.
MARK BRODIE: I would think even basic things like you mentioned, like how to talk to your boss or your coworkers, how to dress in an office, or maybe things that some high school students haven’t experienced before.
RICK STONE: Oh yeah, those are all, you know, things they learn very quickly.
MARK BRODIE: Are you hoping or planning at some point to hire some of the people that you’ve had in as interns?
RICK STONE: Oh, 100%. Yeah, if they come back to the Valley. One of them, she got a full ride to NYU. You know, very proud of her. You know, she ever wants to come back, definitely a very talented engineer. One of the other ones went to Chicago. If he ever comes back, definitely hire him in a heartbeat. Both extremely talented hard workers.
MARK BRODIE: In terms of the actual content of not so much like the learning how to be in a workplace, but like what it is that you do, how prepared were these students when they first walked in your door?
RICK STONE: That’s a interesting question. I would say they were prepared to have an open mind. None of them were familiar with that branch of engineering or science. They were familiar with software testing, but they never executed on it. They knew what they knew from school. What they learned in school in their engineering courses were more of those traditional, you know, coding, some basic electrical, mechanical, 3D printing.
The hard part of interviewing and pulling requirements from a user, they had never done. So, from that perspective, I don’t think they were particularly well prepared, but it was also something that they knew coming in. This is a skill they wanted to learn, or they wanted to know more about this branch or, “Hey, this is maybe something I want to do in the future,” and they adjusted very quickly.
MARK BRODIE: Rick Stone is founder and CEO of S Stone Solutions and Research Collective, based in Phoenix.