By Tiffany Gallegos-Whitley
In October, I made the exciting decision to join the Prosper Waco team as director of workforce initiatives to help launch UpSkill Waco.
UpSkill Waco is an initiative to bring more industry-recognized job skills training and job placement support to neighborhoods around McLennan County. The goal is to meet people where they are and help more unemployed or underemployed individuals in our community find higher skilled and higher paying jobs.
A population within this group we’re making an intentional focus on are young adults age 18-24, who tend to have a higher unemployment rate than other age groups.
A key part of my role launching UpSkill Waco is to coordinate partners already providing workforce services such as McLennan Community College, Texas State Technical College, Heart of Texas Goodwill, and Communities in Schools. Working together will help us provide more training across the county and look at additional training gaps.
I am very excited to be a part of this initiative and to join the Prosper Waco team. Previously, I worked 5½ years at Goodwill, where I had the opportunity to build great relationships and partnerships in our community to advance workforce training and job placement opportunities.
My new role is a way to continue this work in a big-picture setting. I look forward to sharing UpSkill Waco updates over the next months as we launch.
Tiffany Gallegos-Whitley is director of workforce initiatives for Prosper Waco.