From Classroom to Career Before Graduation: BETA Builds a New Biomedical Technology Pathway in Southeast Minnesota

From Classroom to Career Before Graduation: BETA Builds a New Biomedical Technology Pathway in Southeast Minnesota

What if high school students could begin preparing for a high demand healthcare technology career, gain college level experience, learn alongside industry professionals and build a direct connection to future employment before they graduate?

That is the opportunity behind the Biomedical Electronics and Technology Academy (BETA), an innovative career connected learning pathway bringing education and industry together to address a growing workforce need in Southeast Minnesota.

Southeast Service Cooperative (SSC), the College of Biomedical Equipment Technology (CBET), Mayo Clinic, Benchmark, Agiliti and participating school districts are collaborating to create a pathway that introduces high school students to biomedical equipment technology while connecting their education directly to the skills employers need.

BETA is being developed across two student cohorts, with the first cohort participating during the 2026 through 2027 school years and a second cohort carrying the initiative through 2028. Together, the cohorts provide an opportunity not only to prepare students for emerging careers, but also to learn, refine and strengthen a model with potential applications well beyond biomedical technology.

Meeting a Regional Workforce Need

Modern healthcare depends on increasingly sophisticated technology. Behind that technology are biomedical equipment technicians and other Healthcare Technology Management professionals responsible for maintaining, troubleshooting, calibrating and supporting the equipment healthcare professionals rely on every day.

The need for these skilled professionals is growing.

Mayo Clinic, a founding industry partner in BETA, has identified an ongoing need for biomedical equipment technicians as its healthcare technology environment continues to expand and evolve. Other employers, including Benchmark and Agiliti, are experiencing similar demand for employees with technical skills involving electronics, medical devices, networking, cybersecurity, diagnostics and emerging technologies.

BETA is designed to help strengthen that talent pipeline locally by introducing students to these opportunities while they are still in high school.

College Learning Meets Real World Experience

BETA is designed to go beyond traditional career exploration. Students participate in dual enrollment coursework through the College of Biomedical Equipment Technology, an accredited college specializing in Healthcare Technology Management education.

Much of the coursework is delivered online, helping make specialized technical education accessible to students from multiple school districts. The curriculum incorporates electronics, networking, troubleshooting, Healthcare Technology Management, medical equipment, cybersecurity and emerging technology.

Students also have opportunities to apply that learning through immersive technology and authentic industry experiences.

AR and VR simulations allow students to practice concepts such as equipment maintenance, testing, troubleshooting and calibration in virtual environments. Those experiences are complemented by interaction with industry professionals and exposure to actual healthcare technology environments. The result is a pathway connecting what students learn with how those skills are used in the workplace.

Learning Alongside Mayo Clinic Professionals

A key component of BETA is its connection to Mayo Clinic and Healthcare Technology Management professionals. The program includes structured, paid internship experiences designed to give students firsthand exposure to the work performed by biomedical equipment and healthcare technology professionals.

Students can learn about different areas of healthcare technology, interact with professionals working in the field and experience the expectations of a professional workplace. For students, career exploration becomes more than learning about an occupation.

They have an opportunity to experience it.

Preparing Students for an AI Enabled Economy

The technology students encounter in healthcare is changing rapidly, and artificial intelligence is increasingly part of that transformation. Preparing students for the future therefore requires more than teaching a specific set of technical tasks. Students need the technical knowledge, problem solving ability, adaptability, communication skills and judgment necessary to work alongside technologies that will continue to evolve throughout their careers.

That focus has also placed SSC and BETA within a broader national conversation.

In July 2026, Southeast Service Cooperative (SSC) was selected as one of four organizations in the inaugural Jobs for the Future (JFF) Advancing AI-Resilient Early-Career Pathways cohort, alongside FourOne Insights, Pursuit and Wayground.

Supported by Google.org, with additional support from the Families and Workers Fund, the JFF initiative identifies, examines and amplifies practical approaches to helping early career workers build skills, gain experience and navigate an AI enabled economy.

Through the initiative, SSC will build on its early college model by aligning coursework with employer led immersion experiences designed to help students develop both AI resilient technical skills and durable skills.

BETA provides a real world setting in which to put that idea into practice. As medical devices become increasingly connected, data driven and AI enabled, students need opportunities to develop technical expertise while strengthening the uniquely human abilities employers continue to need: critical thinking, communication, adaptability, collaboration and sound judgment.

Creating Opportunities for Rural Students

Specialized career pathways can be difficult for individual school districts to provide on their own, particularly in rural communities where smaller student populations, staffing limitations and distance can restrict access to highly specialized programs. BETA approaches that challenge differently.

By bringing school districts, an education provider, employers and regional partners together, students can access opportunities that may otherwise be unavailable within a single high school. The initial model includes Dover Eyota Public Schools, Pine Island Public Schools and Zumbrota Mazeppa Public Schools.

The hybrid structure is designed to reduce geographic barriers by allowing much of the college coursework to occur remotely while preserving meaningful opportunities for students to learn together and engage directly with industry.

Connecting Education and Industry

Programs like BETA require more than curriculum. They require employers, educators and community partners to work together around a shared workforce challenge. SSC serves as the convener and project manager for BETA, helping connect the organizations involved, coordinate the program and develop the systems and partnerships necessary to move the pathway forward.

CBET provides the college level curriculum and instruction. Participating schools recruit and support students. Mayo Clinic provides industry expertise, mentors, learning opportunities and paid internship experiences. Benchmark and Agiliti contribute additional industry perspective, workforce expertise and connections to career opportunities.

Together, these partners are building something that would be difficult for any one organization to create independently.

Two Cohorts, With an Eye Toward What Comes Next

The two cohort structure gives BETA another important purpose.

The first cohort provides an opportunity to learn from students, families, educators and employer partners throughout the 2026 through 2027 experience. Those lessons can help strengthen the experience for the second cohort and provide valuable information about what is required to make this type of partnership sustainable and scalable.

That means success will be measured by more than participation.

Partners will have an opportunity to examine student engagement and achievement, skills development, internship experiences, employer and educator feedback, career interest and the effectiveness of the systems supporting students along the way.

The goal is both to create a meaningful biomedical technology pathway today and to learn how strong career connected pathways can be built for tomorrow.

Building More Than One Career Pathway

BETA addresses an immediate need for skilled biomedical and healthcare technology professionals, but its potential reaches further.

It provides an opportunity to explore how schools and employers can collaborate differently to prepare students for careers being reshaped by technology.

What works? Where do students need additional support? How can employers participate effectively? How do we prepare young people for an AI enabled workplace? How can specialized career pathways become accessible to more students and communities?

Those lessons can help inform future career connected learning efforts throughout Southeast Minnesota.

For SSC, BETA represents the role a regional convener can play in bringing education, industry and workforce partners together around a common goal: helping students see a clearer connection between what they are learning today and the opportunities waiting for them tomorrow.

Follow the BETA Journey

This is only the beginning of the BETA story! Over the coming months, SSC will take a closer look at the people, careers, technology and partnerships behind the program. We will explore what biomedical equipment technicians actually do, what the BETA experience looks like for students, why AI resilient skills matter, how employers and educators built the pathway together and what we learn as the two cohorts progress through the experience.

We will also hear directly from students, educators, facilitators and industry professionals involved in BETA. Because career connected learning is about more than preparing students for their first job. It is about helping young people understand what is possible, giving them meaningful opportunities to experience those possibilities and building stronger connections between education and the evolving workforce needs of our region.

Whether you are a student exploring what comes next, a parent helping navigate future opportunities, a school leader or educator looking to expand career connected learning, a business interested in developing its future workforce, or a philanthropic partner looking to invest in innovative workforce solutions, Southeast Service Cooperative is here to help make those connections possible.

Visit www.ssc.coop to explore Career Connected Learning opportunities, resources and partnerships across Southeast Minnesota, or contact our team to start a conversation about how we can work together to connect students, education and industry.

Southeast Service Cooperative
Website: https://www.ssc.coop/
Phone: (507) 288-1282
Email: info@ssc.coop