Ohio has a statewide workforce of six million, more than the total population most states can claim. With 180,000 graduating high school seniors and more than 78,000 college graduates ready to join the workforce every year, Ohio is a juggernaut of worker productivity. In fact, Ohio's higher education institutions graduate more potential employees than many states combined.

Ohio's education system doesn't end with graduation. The state offers unique workforce programs for continuing education to help employers conduct necessary training. Ohio works to helps educate the workforce in partnership with industry.

Ohio's primary regions each play to their market strengths, and area workforce and education opportunities are no exception. Representing the nation's third-largest manufacturing economy, Ohio's regions have carved out dominant employee expertise and supportive education systems.

Ohio is serious about the business of creating jobs. In fact, Ohio’s commitment to meeting the workforce and talent development needs of businesses and preparing workers for employment is evidenced by the breadth and depth of its education and work force development resources at it vocational schools, community colleges and universities.

Find out more about Ohio's workforce and education opportunities.

From K-12 schools that challenge and inspire students to be imaginative and analytical in their thinking, to post secondary institutions that develop hard- working, highly skilled graduates, Ohio is continually ensuring that employers have a competitive advantage in the 21st century global marketplace.

Ohio’s workforce offers quality and quantity — and unparalleled work ethic. Per capita statistics are often provided to sell a location’s labor market, showing the population percentage with advanced degrees. However, when a company is looking to hire new employees, it isn’t the percentage that matters. Instead, it is the number of available people with the right knowledge and skills that really counts. In addition to the state’s pool of skilled workers across nine key industries, Ohio’s higher education institutions graduate more potential employees than many states combined.

Employers in Ohio find hard-working, loyal employees, some of the best workers in the United States. The bottom line: Ohio’s abundant, skilled labor supply improves productivity, quality and profit. Find out more.

While serving as director of adult learning services at a major state institution, his passion for quality education inspired him to seek a better way for his distance-learning students to obtain their course materials. Finding none, he created his own.

Two companies later, Dr. Mark is credited with creating a niche industry around the fulfillment of content and course materials for distance learning, career and multi-campus colleges.

A native New Yorker, Dr. Mark went to college at Ohio University and found that Appalachia was “just too pretty a place to leave.” And, when it came time to start his companies, the serial entrepreneur found the ideal business startup location in Ohio’s Enterprise Appalachia.

“I am here because of the Ohio Promise,” Dr. Mark shared in a recent interview with me. “My favorite thing about living in Ohio’s Enterprise Appalachian Region is that you can achieve professional success within the context of a fulfilling life.”

Click here to read the rest of my interview with Dr. Mark.

Ohio has a statewide workforce of six million, more than the total population most states can claim. With 180,000 graduating high school seniors and more than 78,000 college graduates ready to join the workforce every year, Ohio is a juggernaut of worker productivity.

Ohio's education system doesn't end with graduation. The state offers unique workforce programs for continuing education to help employers conduct necessary training. Ohio works to helps educate the workforce in partnership with industry.

Ohio's primary regions each play to their market strengths, and area workforce and education opportunities are no exception. Representing the nation's third-largest manufacturing economy, Ohio's regions have carved out dominant employee expertise and supportive education systems.

Ohio is serious about the business of creating jobs. In fact, Ohio’s commitment to meeting the workforce and talent development needs of businesses and preparing workers for employment is evidenced by the breadth and depth of its education and work force development resources at it vocational schools, community colleges and universities.

Ohio’s workforce offers quality and quantity — and unparalleled work ethic. Per capita statistics are often provided to sell a location’s labor market, showing the population percentage with advanced degrees. However, when a company is looking to hire new employees, it isn’t the percentage that matters. Instead, it is the number of available people with the right knowledge and skills that really counts. In addition to the state’s pool of skilled workers across nine key industries, Ohio’s higher education institutions graduate more potential employees than many states combined.

Employers in Ohio find hard-working, loyal employees, some of the best workers in the United States. The bottom line: Ohio’s abundant, skilled labor supply improves productivity, quality and profit.

Nearly 30 years ago, this insight inspired the creation of Ohio University’s Innovation Center. Since then, the first university-based incubator in the state of Ohio and only the 12th in the U.S. has nurtured more than 80 companies and created more than 1,000 jobs in Ohio’s Appalachian Region.

Focused on information technology, biosciences and alternative and sustainable energy, the Center offers a home – complete with offices, conference rooms, shared office equipment and advanced laboratory equipment that includes the only commercial wet labs in Southeast Ohio – where startup businesses in these industries can grow.

The Center’s location in Ohio’s Enterprise Appalachia Region allows resident entrepreneurs to take advantage of an ideal startup environment that provides all of the criteria for business success: access to supply chain and markets, access to business capital and support services, access to knowledge and labor and access to a balanced life.

Jennifer Simon, director of the Innovation Center, notes that entrepreneurs in Athens and the surrounding region want to stay. The business-friendly environment, growth opportunities and talented workforce fuel the growth of these small businesses, but the welcoming community and balanced lifestyle make them want to remain in the area.

Click here to read the full Ohio University Innovation Center story.