IGNITE Workshop at the Workforce Leadership Conference

The Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board is a state agency committed to the development of a highly skilled workforce that will sustain Washington's economic vitality. The title of this year's conference is Sector Strategies: Building Washington's Workforce, Industry by Industry. IGNITE was invited to participate in this workshop at the Workforce Leadership Conference. As in the past, the conference explored effective workforce development strategies, shared promising and "tested" best practices, and examined national and state policies on the horizon. About 500 people to attended this event—state and local leaders from business, labor, education (both K-12 and higher education), as well as economic development agencies. The Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board (Workforce Board) is a tripartite partnership of business, labor, and government with a membership of 11. The Workforce Board advises the Governor on workforce development policy, ensures that the state’s workforce preparation services and programs work together, and evaluates performance. The Board also advocates for the non-baccalaureate training and education needs of the workers who account for about 75% of Washington State’s workforce. It was an honor to be asked to do a workshop about IGNITE. I want to thank the wonderful women who helped me present that day and did an outstanding job. Thank you to Marta Smith, Program Manager, Microsoft, who did a great job in telling about her perspective on being a volunteer, and how IGNITE benefits students and industry both. It was a great presentation. I want to thank Ani Manjikian, our IGNITE web designer who does much work behind the scenes. Many hours of web design and construction, Ani helped me with the technical aspects of the presentation, the Power Point Presentation and showing the video and all around support, Thank you so much Ani!! I want to thank the wonderful women who invited us and made us feel so welcome. They also attended our session. Thank you to Terri Colbert, and Lynnae Ruttledge, it was great to meet you and to feel to welcomed. You made us feel special and we really appreciated that. We were able to reach out to industry and educators all across our state to help them be aware of the issues that ignite addresses. We wanted to share the importance of doing this work for women to enter high wage careers in Technology and Engineering. We in IGNITE feel that it would be helpful to have IGNITE in every middle school, high school, and college in our state to support women in each stage towards these careers. We do tend to lose women entering these careers in every stage, so we want to be able to support women from the early years, 13 or 14 years old, until they are in industry, and still need that on-going support. IGNITE is a beginning and does not have an ending. Women who enter IGNITE stay in and then they end up being volunteers for the younger girls. So it is that chance for IGNITE to get out there and help the larger community of schools to do ignite in their districts so that girls everywhere can have access to these opportunities. Thank you for this opportunity. Sincerely, Cathi