Co-Chair, Governor Inslee'S Poverty Reduction Workgroup And Grants Director
Current• Articulate strategic agenda, align projects and personnel to support strategic plan, and manage critical legislative, stakeholder, and grantee relationships.• Lead a team of highly skilled professionals and teams of local contractors, customers, and stakeholders, to ensure dignified customer service, integration of programs, and tangible improvements in customers’ lives.• Run federal workforce programs for low-income families, laid-off workers, disadvantaged youth, and innovative program design.• Lead the agency’s grants and contracts portfolio of $180 million, making grants to over 60 organizations throughout Washington State.• Co-chair Governor Inslee’s Poverty Reduction Workgroup.• Washington State Legislature’s Poverty Reduction Oversight Task Force board member.• Created Economic Security for All (EcSA) program for equitable poverty reduction in all communities across the state.• Doubled the number of people finding employment through workforce programs statewide.• Developed Career Connect Washington into a permanent statewide program that will reach 60% of all high school students by 2030, enabling youth to begin apprenticeship during high school and earn money, credit toward graduation, and hours toward journeyman status. Philadelphia is now beginning replication of our model.• Won $24 million in federal COVID economic recovery grants and $7 million for opioid crisis response.• Advise the governor on innovative use of federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) governor’s reserve funds to reduce poverty, promote economic inclusion, and integrate programs into a coordinated system. • Co-led development of ten year strategic plan for poverty reduction.• Created, chartered and co-led a permanent seven agency human-centered design team for poverty reduction, racial equity, and economic recovery.• Included a strong equity lens and the voice of lived experience of poverty in all aspects of my team’s work.
