Explore the Workforce Track at the 2025 SOAR Summit

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Eastern Kentucky’s workforce is evolving — and the SOAR Summit Workforce Track explored how we equip people not just for jobs, but for purpose-filled lives. From social enterprise to reentry to modern apprenticeships, these sessions spotlighted the systems, partnerships, and innovations powering inclusive employment and economic mobility in Appalachia.

Tuesday, August 26

10 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. | Corbin Center | Room 103 A-B

In rural places like West Virginia, North Carolina, and Eastern Kentucky, pioneering organizations are building a new kind of economy, one where workers are also owners, businesses solve social problems, and profit is reinvested into place.

This session brought together three powerful models:

• Coalfield Development: A nationally celebrated workforce and reentry social enterprise model
• The Industrial Commons: A rural North Carolina hub for cooperative manufacturing and ownership
• The EKY Runway Social Enterprise Accelerator: An emerging initiative launching worker-centered ventures in coal-impacted counties

Together, these leaders will explore how social enterprises and employee ownership models (ESOPs, co-ops, trusts) can create lasting change by blending purpose + profit + equity in rural America.

10 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. | Corbin Center | Room 103 C-D

In the rapidly evolving labor market of Eastern Kentucky, data is only valuable when it leads to action.

This session spotlighted Futuriti, a dynamic workforce platform built specifically for Kentucky that enables residents, whether job seekers, students, or those in recovery or reentry, to easily explore career pathways, in-demand training, and live job opportunities tailored to their region and personal goals.

Alongside state and national partners KYStats and Lightcast, the session demonstrated how data tools are no longer just for planners and policymakers. they are for people. Together, the panel discussed how integrated labor market data, real-time employer demand, and visual career exploration tools are helping rural Kentuckians make more informed decisions about their future and helping communities align education, workforce, and economic development.

11 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. | Corbin Center Room | Room 103 A-B

Apprenticeships are evolving beyond the trades and they’re one of the most effective tools we have to rebuild Eastern Kentucky’s workforce from within. This session explored how earn and learn models are being used not only in construction and healthcare, but also in tech, manufacturing, and entrepreneurship. We featured scalable strategies, local success stories, and funding mechanisms to help expand apprenticeships across sectors.

With major employers and education partners embracing flexible, competency-based models, this conversation highlighted how Eastern Kentucky can become a rural leader in modern apprenticeship design.

1:45 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. | Corbin Center | Room 103 A-B

For individuals navigating the path to meaningful employment, healthcare-related barriers (mental and physical) often present the most significant roadblocks. This panel explored how access to comprehensive health supports is foundational to workforce re-entry, especially for those long disconnected from traditional employment. Featuring leaders from philanthropy, healthcare, insurance, and social enterprise, the session highlighted how strategic collaboration can help solve entrenched problems around chronic disease, behavioral health, addiction recovery, and benefits navigation.

Framed through the lens of SOAR’s “whole human” model, the discussion emphasized how investing in people’s health is inseparable from investing in their economic futures. Panelists also shared how their organizations are stepping up to close critical gaps in care, reduce employment friction, and provide long-term wraparound support.

Wednesday, August 27

10 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. | Corbin Center | Room 103 A-B

Eastern Kentucky is home to some of the most resilient and talented people in the country. But too often, circumstances like addiction, incarceration, and generational poverty have created invisible barriers to employment. The EKY Runway Program, made possible by a more than $40 million investment through the EDA Recompete Pilot Program, is transforming that reality.

This session brought the model to life through the voices of those who know it best: Runway clients, empowerment coaches, and peer mentors who were walking the long road from surviving to thriving together.

Attendees heard honest, unscripted reflections on what it means to stabilize, rebuild confidence, and pursue purpose-driven work. And they learned how the Runway approach—grounded in trust, mentorship, and individualized support—was helping people not only get jobs, but reclaim their future.

11 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. | Corbin Center | Room 103 A-B

In Kentucky — and across America — we often define reentry as a personal journey. But what if it was something more? What if reentry were a community’s opportunity to rebuild trust, reduce barriers, and design systems that actually work?

In this powerful session, Aaron Poynter, Director of Reentry Initiatives for the Kentucky Education & Labor Cabinet, invited attendees to reimagine reentry — not as a siloed service or box to check, but as a strategic workforce, economic, and public health priority.

Drawing from lived experience, statewide innovation, and a career spent building partnerships, Aaron explored:

• Why justice involvement is a systems issue, not just an individual one

• What it means to be a “reentry-ready” community

• How employers, workforce boards, housing providers, educators, and peer mentors all have a role to play

• How Kentucky is building one of the most comprehensive reentry infrastructures in the nation

This was more than a talk about second chances — it was a roadmap for sustainable, inclusive, and equitable economic development in places that need it most.

11 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. | Corbin Center | Room 100

Traditional workforce development often measures success solely by credentials, technical training, or job placement. But for many in Eastern Kentucky, sustainable re-entry into the workforce requires more than skills: it requires confidence, networks, resilience, and purpose.

In this fireside chat, SOAR and the Service Academy explored the role of social capital and life skills development as precursors to meaningful and lasting employment. This conversation connected to SOAR’s EKY Runway program, which takes a whole-human approach, supporting individuals not just as workers but as people navigating personal growth, community ties, and the challenges of generational poverty.

Through stories, strategies, and lived experiences, participants learned how investing in the human side of workforce readiness builds stronger pathways into jobs, keeps people in the workforce longer, and strengthens communities.

2025 SOAR Summit Sponsors

Take a look at the 2025 SOAR Summit Schedule