The next great tech boom won’t just be coded. It will be welded, machined, assembled, tested and launched. And Florida is quietly building the workforce to win it. More than 1.3 million Floridians participated in career and technical education in 2024–25 — 818,000+ K–12 learners and nearly 512,000 postsecondary learners. Florida also awarded 80,972 rapid credentials in a single year. Then look at apprenticeships: 25,000+ active apprentices and pre-apprentices. 2,100+ participating employers. 144 apprenticeable occupations. 70% growth in registered apprentices since 2018–19. (Florida Department of Education⁠) Layer on Florida’s 28 state colleges across 175 locations, technical colleges, universities and independent career institutions, and you begin to see something bigger than a workforce program. You see an emerging industrial talent machine. That matters because the next decade is going to be about atoms as much as bits: Aerospace. Defense. Robotics. Energy. Advanced manufacturing. Maritime. Semiconductors. Autonomous systems. Things America actually has to build. And Florida already possesses one of the ingredients that will matter most: a massive, increasingly sophisticated pipeline of people learning how to make, operate, repair and scale hard things. A big part of the next chapter will fall to Florida’s new Commissioner of Education, @HenmackIII. He comes to the role after leading major parts of Florida’s college and workforce system and serving as U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor overseeing federal employment and training programs. That combination of education + workforce experience is particularly relevant to what comes next. Florida isn’t just competing for the companies of the future. We’re building the people who will build them.