American Solutions for Business’ Vice President of Technology, Mike Pfeiffer, recently spoke to local students at Minnewaska Area High School’s Career Day. The school is located near Glenwood, Minnesota, where ASB’s Home Office is based. Many of these students are children of employees and some become summer interns and future employees. Therefore, for the leadership team at ASB, getting involved with area schools is always a top priority.

Pfeiffer discussed the following topics:

• Evolution of Technology – He explained, “Your smartphone is millions of times more powerful than all of NASA’s combined computing in 1969.”
• Nearly all fields involve technology today.
• AgTech (Agricultural Technology) is one of the fastest growing fields.
• Cyber Security is hot and marketable: “A 200,000 worker shortage exists and is expected to grow. Cybersecurity may be the fastest-growing career field today, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimating that the field will grow 28 percent between 2016 and 2026 (average growth for all jobs is about 7 percent).”
• Don’t specialize too much in high school – make sure to be open to trying many fields. Pfeiffer shared with them that he wanted to be an accountant prior to 11^th grade.
• Don’t overlook local technical and community colleges to get your 2-year degree, get employed, leverage your education with tuition reimbursement benefits and commitment to life-long learning.
• High-speed Bandwidth (defined as 10 Mbps minimum download speed ) today is like electricity to the home for our parents’ generation. Not all homes have high-speed, but cities are under increasing pressure to meet that threshold to continue to see residents move to – instead of leave – their cities.