Christopher Zablocki and Shane Wedding, 2025 Graduates of Hancock County High School, joined Dataseam and Hancock County Technology Department to be recognized and presented certificates for opportunities from the statewide Dataseam program.
Dataseam, an education and workforce education organization based in Louisville, works with Kentucky K-12 schools, improving the state’s technology workforce as part of providing new classroom technology to schools addressing advanced curriculum needs preparing students for next-generation workforce demands.
Pictured left to right: Greg Payne, Dataseam Apprentice Program Manager; Chris Garrison, Assistant Director of Technology; Chris Zablock, Dataseam Registered Apprentice; Dr. Joshua Scherrer, Director of Operations Hancock County Schools.
Christopher Zablocki was acknowledged for his successful completion of U.S. Department of Labor-approved Registered Apprenticeship for Information Technology. The Registered Apprenticeship, a two-year program encompassing approximately 400 hours of instruction and a minimum 600 hours of On-Job Training and mentoring, trains participants to support enterprise-level technology infrastructure.
Zablocki received a USDOL Journeyworker Certificate. This designation allows participants to move into the workforce or university with two years practical employment experience and provides a solid foundation of skills to grow their knowledge, experience, and value to any institution or organization. As part of Christopher’s training, he served as a student worker in the Hancock County Schools Technology Department, supporting technology for one of the county’s largest employers, public education.
Shane Wedding was selected by the University of Louisville as one of ten 2025 Dataseam Scholars funded by the university and was presented a certificate on this accomplishment. The 4-year, $2,000 annual competitive award is available to students from Dataseam-participating schools wishing to pursue STEM and STEM education-related degree programs. Wedding will be attending the University of Louisville this fall to pursue studies in nursing.
“We are thankful for the continued partnership between Dataseam and our community,” said Dr. Joshua Scherrer, Director of Operations for Hancock County Schools. “Through Dataseam program offerings, we have worked to improve the district’s local technical and instructional workforces, leverage available funding to maximize opportunities for our students, and work with Dataseam to grow the state’s future knowledge-based workforce. Over time, our partnership with Dataseam has allowed us to earn over $1.2 million in new classroom computers for Hancock County Schools.”
Pictured left to right: Shane Wedding, 2025 Dataseam Scholar and Brian Gupton, Dataseam CEO.
Computers provided by Dataseam are linked across the state district-by-district to assemble the DataseamGrid, a vital piece of Kentucky’s innovation and commercialization network. It helps the University of Louisville’s Brown Cancer Center develop more effective cancer drugs quicker and with reduced costs. The cancer computations run securely in the background and do not impede the district’s daily classroom and Internet demands. Dataseam has worked in partnership for over 20 years with Kentucky K-12 schools advancing these efforts.
“We are proud of Mr. Wedding and Mr. Zablocki and thankful to our Hancock County partnership in producing them,” said Brian Gupton, Dataseam. “Each of these students can play a vital part in Kentucky’s future workforce and sure evidence of the success our rural Kentucky schools have in preparing them. We appreciate the support of the Kentucky General Assembly to fund and help us advance these efforts.”
Rep. Scott Lewis, Hartford stated, “I could not be prouder of these two gentlemen and their representation of opportunities available through Hancock County Schools’ partnership with Dataseam. I have supported these efforts for our students since their inception. They continue to pay dividends for our future workforce statewide.”
For more information on the district: https://www.hancock.kyschools.us
Download a PDF of this press release HERE.
