by Rick de Yampert
Truleigh Sargent, AdventHealth East Florida Division Workforce Development Specialist. Photo by Joshua Wilson of JayHawk Productions
At AdventHealth’ s Step Into the Future Career Experience in September 2025 in Daytona Beach, students from Volusia and Flagler public schools got a hands-on look – literally – at careers in healthcare.
The immersive experience offered students numerous encounters with clinical and non-clinical healthcare roles, including using a virtual reality headset to perform handson CPR on a CPR dummy.
Youngsters learning CPR in a healthcare career fair setting?
Lightcast, a labor market analytics firm, reported in its 2024 Talent Attraction Scorecard that Florida was the number one state for attracting and developing a skilled workforce for the third consecutive year.
However, the Florida Chamber Foundation cites Florida’ s employment“ talent gap,” and the Foundation’ s Future of Work Initiative says that“ nearly 72 % of Florida’ s workforce leaders report struggling to find qualified talent, signaling a statewide workforce crisis.”
The talent gap challenge“ is immediate,” says Corrie Melton, the Florida Chamber Foundation’ s Vice President of Talent
Development for the Future of Work. One focus of the foundation’ s Florida 2030 Blueprint, which says one million net new jobs will be needed to accommodate expected population growth over the next four years, is“ improving Florida’ s talent pipeline for a better workforce.”
Corrie Melton
One way of achieving that goal is pursuing what the chamber calls the“ cradle-to-career” concept, an idea embraced by numerous employers and organizations.
“ The cradle-to-career continuum recognizes workforce development begins long before someone enters the workforce,” says Melton, who attended the Florida Chamber Foundation’ s 2026 Florida Learners to Earners Workforce Solution Summit.
She cites three takeaways from that summit:“ First, employers recognize they must be active partners in developing talent, not simply consumers of it. Across every industry, business leaders are stepping up to work more closely with educators to help
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