Brad Turner-Little: Retooling the Nation’s Workforce System

Work Forces

Brad Turner-Little, President and CEO of the National Association of Workforce Boards (NAWB), shares his vision for NAWB and his commitment to building a workforce system that empowers individuals and strengthens communities. He discusses the challenges and opportunities facing workforce boards in the current landscape, emphasizing the need for innovation, adaptability, and strong leadership. Brad also highlights the importance of collaboration between business, education, and community partners in driving economic vitality and creating pathways to opportunity for all.

Transcript

Julian Alssid: Welcome to Work Forces. I'm Julian Alssid.

Kaitlin LeMoine: And I'm Kaitlin LeMoine, and we speak with the innovators who shape the future of work and learning.

Julian: Together, we unpack the complex elements of workforce and career preparation and offer practical solutions that can be scaled and sustained.

Kaitlin: Workforces is supported by Lumina Foundation. Lumina is an independent private foundation in Indianapolis that is committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all. Let's dive in.

Well, Julian, I can't believe we're well on our way with season three.

Julian: I know the season is really flying by and there are so many innovative initiatives and voices to highlight.

Kaitlin: No kidding. And it's amazing to see the themes that are emerging through these conversations. One theme that we're exploring this season and looking forward to discussing further today is really around rethinking and retooling the organizations that drive workforce, education and talent development.

Julian: Yeah, we have a lot to unpack here, and we have just the guests to do it. Today, we're excited to connect with Brad Turner Little, who leads one of the nation's most important workforce development organizations, the National Association of Workforce Boards. Brad is Nob's president and CEO. He's been a strong voice and leader in the field of workforce development and the nonprofit sector. Prior to taking on this role, he honed his expertise and leadership skills in various key positions at Goodwill Industries International and Easterseals, most recently as Vice President of Strategy and Network Experience at Goodwill. Brad graduated Wake Forest University and holds a Master of Divinity degree in Christian Social Ministry from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and resides in Damascus, Maryland. It is great to have you on the pod, Brad, particularly as you're closing in on your first year as head of knob. I feel like we're getting you at kind of a, you know, an important milestone moment. Welcome.

Brad Turner-Little: So go Deeks for my Wake Forest alumni who may be listening. And once a Hornet, always a Hornet, part of the swarm for Damascus High School. If there's anybody by chance that may be connected to Damascus, Maryland, who might be listening as well. So, so.

They'll always be a part of the swarm and go dekes. But it's really, I'm excited to be here. The conversations that you guys have been having via Work Forces, I think are really, really critical. Just very recently, I heard this yesterday, I was in a conversation with Secretary Su at the Department of Labor, where she was talking about the one and a half conversations around the impact of AI and how that's impacting workers and how to not just create safety and security and protections for workers as impacts are evolving, but to think more broadly about the ways that AI and be it generative AI or other more historical artificial intelligence are impacting the way that work happens. And one of the things that I brought up in that conversation is this is to your point, I think, in terms of, Kaitlin, as you were mentioning, the retooling. Right, the retooling of workforce, the retooling of education, those sorts of things, right, is the need for investment in our nation's workforce infrastructure, just like we are investing in the physical infrastructure in that we need to be thinking about how AI and other technologies can transform the way that the public workforce system does its business and not just how job matching occurs and skill matching, but like really think hard about redoing the financial models of the public workforce system to stretch resources further, to better steward them, yes. But there's an opportunity in the moment, I think, to view the nation's public workforce system, local workforce boards, the three, you know, there's nearly 600 state and local workforce boards across the country and all the territories. There's about 3,000 America's job centers that all are sort of branded a little bit different in each state, but to really invest in the backbone of those things so that they can support the evolution of economies that are happening in regions all across the country. As different industries are transforming, that's requiring different skills and competencies for workers. There needs to be an investment in the public workforce system in order to support its ability to effectively serve businesses and all of our neighbors across the country. It's a very timely topic for you guys to be thinking about and having conversations around because there's a retooling sort of theoretical construct. I know Julian, you and I have had conversations about this in the past, right? There's a theoretical esoteric conversation about that. And then there's a very practical conversation about on the ground, what does transformation actually need to entail? What do we need to be investing in? How do we need to think about the execution of supporting businesses and talent coming together in fundamentally different ways that leverage lessons that we're seeing and learning from other parts of the economy into the way we think about preparing workers and connecting workers to career opportunities.

Kaitlin: Yeah, no, we're with you there, Brad. And I think appreciate that introduction. And I think building off of what Julian said regarding your bio, we'd love to hear a little bit more about your background and how you approach your work, especially, like you said, in light of this very complex present state that we all live in.

Brad: I've had the opportunity, Julian and I have known each other for a number of years, I don't think because we're in podcasts. I don't know if ultimately it will be video or not, but Julian and I are both of an age where we've known each other for all of our time.

Julian: Okay, okay.

Brad: But, you know, so my career piece really is sort of all been grounded in and sort of centered on a fundamental belief in the power and dignity of work to transform lives and communities. In the intro you mentioned that I do have a master's of entity degree but it's focused in Christian social ministry and inside that is the important role that economic empowerment and economic freedom plays in the human experience as it relates to dignity and Contribution to community support a family. I think there's a really important element to the human experience to be able to contribute through work. And so I got my career has all been built on how can I think about sort of on the ground and at a systems level, what can we do better tomorrow than we did today that can create better ways for people, for individuals to provide for themselves and their families better tomorrow than they did today? And it's one of the things we talk about now here at NAWB because we don't do direct service delivery, right? We're not helping job seekers and businesses come together in Tulsa, Oklahoma. That's not our role. We serve and support and represent local workforce boards that do that. But it's important that we here at NNAWB ground our work in a commitment that more kids are gonna have dinner on the table tomorrow night than they do tonight. That's what we do this work for. When it all boils down, from overhauling public workforce infrastructure, through to thinking about building certain strategies in our space. You know, we talk about sector strategies and career pathing and all the, you know, and skills first hiring and advancement to transform the way that talent acquisition happens, right? All of that for me personally is grounded in a deep commitment. And I'll say it again, to make sure that more kids have dinner tomorrow night than they do tonight. Because that's really when it hits the ground and that's what it means. You know, I've done lots of different things to support sort of directly in the public workforce system and in partnership with the public workforce system over the course of my career. And it will be September, September 5th will be one year. So it's currently August the 6th. So I have little bit less than a month in this role. And it's been really exciting here. You know the National Association of Workforce Boards will be 50 years old in 2029. And we were founded by a lovely gentleman. I know Julian and I know Bob Knight well. And Kaitlin, I don't know if you have, but I have had the opportunity to meet Bob Knight, but Bob founded this organization nearly 50 years ago with a vision of really advocating for the public workforce system. And over the years, it's been led by wonderful people, most recently by Ron Painter for about 15 years. But as I've come in, we've been working on building on that legacy, but really thinking in new ways about how we can not just represent local workforce boards, but how we can serve, support, and represent. And so we're thinking about how do we build products, how do we deliver services, how do we build relationships that create value for local workforce boards to be able to have the kind of impact that they are deeply committed to in their communities. So we're building new capabilities here to better serve and support. And I would also argue, ultimately, to better represent the interest of the public workforce system with Congress, with the administration, and with other stakeholders. But it's a growth period, it's a transformation period for us here at NAWB, and it's been really exciting. It's been very challenging work, but it's the most fun thing I've ever done in my career. It's over 25 years in workforce development for me, and it's been very rewarding, and I'm excited about our future here.

Julian: It is very exciting, Brad, and they're certainly lucky to have you. I mean, you've been a force in the field for many years since I've known you, and as you know, as we know, the world is changing. And as we've discussed, there's a lot of need for retooling in all aspects of workforce development. This is just this constant theme, I guess. And we try to kind of keep it, you know, keep it where you want it, which is to keep it real and practical. So it's really, it'd be really interesting to hear you describe some of the very specific steps you're taking as you lead NAWB into the future.

Brad: Yeah, so I got, you know, we've really landed on three primary strategies that I wanna talk through a little bit as it relates to how we believe we can, in partnership with our members, better serve, support, and represent them. And then I'm gonna talk about one area that that really hits the ground and that we believe is critical to the evolution of this organization. So the first three things are, number one, we want to really lean in and understand and help advance what moves the needle. And so as a business, as a small business, even though I'm an association, I think it's important to understand, like I'm a small business, right? And I got to think about what my business capabilities are and how do I want to build those things to create value for my customer set, right? And so I need to, we've got to build capabilities to listen hard to what the local workforce board's experiences are, what really drives change and impact, and then find ways to not just understand it and codify it, but spread it across the country, right? After 25 years of system level type work, I've come to the place where the construct of scale, I think, becomes a problem oftentimes in our conversations. Because when I think about scale, like what comes to mind is, like, you know, how do, you know, when Samsung releases a new phone, they think about scale. How much market share can they garner, right? Of all the cell phones that are out there, right? We wanna scale this model. We wanna scale and approach. But there's such, you know, and you guys have known this, right? You've experienced it over the years, like, like the dynamics and the context and the environment and the politics of, I mentioned Tulsa earlier, like they're different than Tallahassee and they're different than Tacoma. I love using T examples because they're strong alliterations there, right? But they are different. But if I think about a concept of spreading things, right? And when you think about the ways that, you know, technologies have and the viralness of trending and X, it used to be Twitter and other sort of platforms, things spread, people get excited about it. They wanna grab onto it and then make it their own and build on it and make it better and things spread over time, right? And I think that because it's human driven. Right, and so I want us to think about how do we as NAWB help spread things across our nation's workforce infrastructure, right? And so that helps us think about what kind of products do we need to be building? How do we build things that are agile and flexible and customizable to make sense, but have some foundational sort of components that are really important to think about? So as an example, right? So as opposed to...Here's the actual, like, take this operating model and move it from Tulsa to Tacoma, right? Here is the guiding conversational framework for players to have, to come to an agreement about a problem or a situation or an opportunity. So the conversational framework can be taken from community to community, but the actual conversation is different. You see the difference there? So it's not telling people this worked in Tulsa, so it's gonna have to work in, I'm gonna switch it up, Buffalo. Because there's a natural resistance to that. So just circumvent the resistance and create an experience that people can have together where they can develop a shared aspiration for their community. Because people act locally and they wanna do things locally on the ground, but they wanna do it together. And so I have found that, you know, as opposed to here's a model, we're gonna move it from space to space. If you can take an approach that allows a community to come together and build out a shared aspiration, they'll figure it out. They'll figure out how to move the needle and they'll get other communities excited about that. And they're gonna wanna know, how did you have that conversation? How did you get there? Well, it began by us having, you know, having a structured experience around these sorts of issues that led us to this place. So I'm super excited about sort of part one. Part two is we need to be deeply committed to helping our system skate to where the puck is going. Right, in the words of the great Wayne Gretzky, although I probably butchered his quote. But that's another thing too, is that our system, you know, I mean, yes, we've, you know, the amount of federal investment in the public welfare system has, you know, has gone down annually for, you know, years. So we, I mean, that's probably part of our reality moving forward, which means we have to get more creative. We have to be more innovative with how we do the business. And I started off with thinking about, you know, my comments to the Acting Secretary. We've got to invest in experimentation around how boards operate. And I think that's really, really critical that we at NAWB, we have a unique view, right? We sit at a balcony level. We're not at the orchestra level. We can sort of see things a little differently. And I think it's our responsibility to sort of gaze out over the horizon and sort of identify things that can be, that we need to experiment in to help boards better achieve their missions on the ground in communities, local workforce boards to really be able to do that as they bring business and talent together. So there's the operational piece. There's also things like, you know, we're really involved in the skills first hiring and advancement, you know, sort of work that I know many, you know, National Governors Association, Walmart, Foundation, lots of different groups are kind of in this space around thinking about what does it mean to fundamentally transform how a job seeker communicates with the value they can create for a business and how the business understands what are the actual competencies that we need to do a certain job. And oftentimes, a degree requirement is a false equivalency to competency needed to do work. But there's so much more than just that part of skills, you know, skills, skills first agenda. So anyway, I think, you know, but that's on the horizon. So we need to be in that conversation and in that space. And then lastly, you know, I mentioned this a little bit earlier, but I do think it's really important that that we that we at NAWB align with and engage with people, corporations, partners, whatever it may be, that where we can really discern a shared aspiration around economic vitality in communities, right? That benefits business and all of our neighbors alike. Right, so I think those, so, and that influences like how we wanna approach, you know, the relationships that we're in and what are we trying to achieve, right? And ultimately, if this is about having a thriving local economy, I think we can also rally around that because that's going to create more opportunities for people. And ultimately, that's going to mean more kids are going to have dinner tomorrow night than they do tonight. And so, you know, let's think creatively about how we do that. So anyway, those are kind of the big three pillars of our focus as we build and as we evolve as an organization. Absolutely retaining sort of our engagements around the representation part for workforce boards. In this particular moment in time, Congress is considering the reauthorization of the federal legislation that sort of sits on top of this whole system called the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. There's appropriations discussions going on. So we're deeply involved in those pieces, but we believe that there's so much more we can be doing to support boards. And that's really those first three pieces. The other thing that I wanted, and where this begins to really come together for me, Kaitlin, is in our deep commitment to helping build and equip leaders in the public workforce system. So local executive directors, local CEOs of workforce boards and the Boards themselves, sort of equipping them and building competencies and skills that really align with the kind of leader you need in the overall economy, right? One that is certainly able to execute from complying with regulatory frameworks or expectations in law, but really has competencies in the space of understanding how to navigate change, how to think differently about agility within an organization, and how to do organizational development that builds trust within the team, right? Because ultimately, the competency sets and the skills that we're gonna need 10 years from now, like that's really hard to project. There's gonna be technologies that don't exist or whatever, but I can guarantee you that, you know, one thing that will be needed in the workplace 10 years from now is trust. So how do we build trust with one another within teams and how do we help leaders within the workforce system build those kinds of competencies to do community engagement, to think strategically to lean into vision crafting and aspiration development and then build strategy in those spaces, right? So, you know, we're thinking hard and working with our members to understand from a professional development perspective, what does the executive director of the future look like and how do we build them, right? How do we prepare people for that and build the right competencies for leaders in communities that are responsible for stewarding our nation's public system. So, you know, we've got some big things that are on the docket, but, you know, it's a, we need to. The public workforce system deserves us taking on big things because they do big, important work every single day. And we need to support them and serve them and represent them in new and value add ways. And so this is what we're working on here at NAWB.

Kaitlin: Brad, I think you began to touch upon both a challenge and an opportunity that you're seeing right around leadership roles and what does it look like, what are the skills that are needed as we think about the future of leading workforce development initiatives and models. Curious to hear a little bit more about what are some of the other challenges and successes that you're seeing in your work, especially, you know, as you're about to reach that one year point at NAWB, you know, we see, you know, different potential challenges like being, you know, resistance and regulatory considerations. But I mean, would love to hear more about what you're seeing both on the challenge side, but also, you know, what do you think is working?

Brad: You know, from where I sit, you know, as the new leader of this organization, and we're not that large, I mean, we're 10, 12 people, we're not a big organization, but you know, when I think about sort of what a local workforce board sort of leaders experience is and some of the challenges they're facing, certainly the resource question is a big one. You know, we know that in our world, we owe funding, you know, has gone down on the appropriations process for decades. And as a result, because, you know, when you do see those great examples, I think of the sort of how to lean into opportunity. It's about 60% of local workforce boards now have spun off outside of government to create their own nonprofit. And what that does is, amongst a variety of things, it creates an ability to access capital beyond government funding so that you can actually break things, weave investment from philanthropy, other government funding, foundation investment, those kind of, programmatic investments. Like you can think about capital in a different way. And so I think, you know, we've seen Boards, we've seen executive directors go on that journey that the payoff is being able to have greater flexibility and access to more capital, to be able to respond to business need and job seeker, career builder need in community. So I think that, you know, that's a great example of kind of there is innovation happening in the network. It doesn't sound like that's like, that's not a big thing to think about going from being a government into a nonprofit, but it's actually a pretty big thing. Because it's responsive to how, you know, trying to think about how does, as a local leader, how do I create access to more resources and how do I create agility within my own organization to be able to be responsive to me? So I think that's an interesting example of kind of both the challenge and the responding response to flipping it and seeing it as an opportunity to think differently.

Kaitlin: Well, and it sounds like that's something that's like spreadable, right? Like maybe not seeable, but spreadable, as you said earlier in your different chain.

Brad: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And there are some instances where that's not, you know, that's not practical. Doesn't make sense, but a lot of places it does. And I think there's some clearly momentum behind that. And we've actually got some product coming out soon that will be, that sort of reflects those experiences of boards that have gone through that process that can help boards ask better questions as they're considering it, right? So that's one piece. Another piece gets to our reality that inside, and you mentioned a little bit some of the challenges from compliance and regulation and those sorts of things, but there's also a bigger reality that I think many of us as leaders sort of are trying to navigate, right? Which is the, what I bring and what my team brings to work with them every day, in terms of their experience of the world around them and a growing sense of frustration, a growing sense of divisiveness, a growing sense of brokenness, just in the systems and a disbelief and an inability to trust that tomorrow is gonna be better than today, right? People feel that. The military had come up with the VUCA environment, right? Several years ago, to be able to understand our post-Cold War navigation, right? Now, change management experts tell us we've moved past VUCA, now we're in Bonnie, right? And in the beginning, part of Bonnie is a sense of brokenness, of fracturedness. How do we as leaders lead teams who are bringing that with them every day? And so it requires us as leaders to think about how am I building trust? How am I thinking about empathy? How am I thinking about alignment? How am I thinking about creating safety and security in the workplace in very different types of ways that then the leaders have had to in the past on top of, right, on top of the state's coming in to do a compliance review, or the Feds are coming to do, you know, so you have those requirements of the business expectations, right? But there's also, you're doing it in a context, and you're supporting businesses and job seekers that are inside an economy which is so rapidly transforming, where we talked about a little bit earlier, where competency sets are gonna be needed three years from now. We have no idea what those are going to be because technology is changing so quickly. So how do you build systems which can absorb that rate of change and supports for people and businesses alike that can absorb that and can create value in those sort of contexts? Those are massive changes and challenges for leaders. I think there are lessons out there that we can learn from the private sector. I think there are lessons out there that we can learn from other associations that can be informative for Work for Sports who are in that context, and for leaders in that context who are trying to understand, how do I help this organization achieve the impact it should and the mission that it's challenged with? Because it's critical work, right? Bringing business and talent together to create economic vitality is critical. And yet, there's so many sort of environmental pressures pushing on it and pushing on them. It can be really discouraging. It can be really disheartening, particularly when, you know, we sort of joke, right? It's really hard to explain what a workforce board is. And you get lost kind of in the detail of that. And then...And it's because it's not an understood sort of thing that can oftentimes feel like it's undervalued because it's hard to explain. And then it gets under resourced because it's undervalued and it can be really disheartening. And so I think it's also really important that we at NAWB as part of that representation charge is that like we communicate this work matters, right? There are people who are leaving time behind bars today that are going to one of those America's Job Centers across the country and are finding opportunity and are gonna be able to reunite with their family and provide for them in the way that they want because of America's Job Centers, because of local workforce boards. There are youth who have dropped out of school. There are 18-year-olds who have dropped out of school who are involved in programs operated by local workforce boards that are gonna see a path, are gonna find hope, right? There are older workers who are gonna be able to reconnect with the workforce and provide for themselves in ways that they haven't thought of before because of workforce boards. Like their work matters and it makes a difference. And I think it's really important to acknowledge that and to lean into it.

Julian: We like to ask the people we talk with on the show about practical steps folks can take and you really have touched on many for the workforce system. Our audience includes, you know, not just the workforce leaders, the workforce board leaders, but also all the other constituents, the employers, the post-secondary, the educators, the other community groups that need to work with them. Any, any words of wisdom with regard to practical steps, sort of the broader, cause you know, this is, it's going to take a village to do this clearly.

Brad: Right. Well, I think, well, I mean, both you and I know, Julian, that at its best, right, the public workforce system is actually, it represents the table where every one of the, the, the, the stakeholder, the members, your audience members, be they from the business community, from the education community, from the other government program community, community-based organizations, like the workforce board table is the table to come together. And that's actually the charge of a local workforce board is to bring those entities together in a community and understand what's happening in a local economy, understand the competencies that are needed to drive that local economy, understand how to build those competencies that are needed to drive a local economy, and then help bridge people in that local area to the competency building opportunities to really to lean into the jobs that are in that local economy, right? So, the most practical thing I could suggest, Julian, is that if your audience members are not connected to your local workforce board, call them. So you can find information about how to get in touch with your local workforce board at nawb.org. The Department of Labor at the federal level has a wonderful website, careeronestop.org, that you can go to, plug in your zip code, and you will find who's like...who the local workforce board is with contact information and make a phone call and say, hey, I wanna get connected, I wanna get involved. I think that at the most fundamental practical level, it's step up and engage in the building of the plan to drive economic vitality in your community. To me, that is a very practical, low risk step that folks can take that are in your audience today. So that's one. Two, I do think for folks who are in your audience that are listening in, that are from the business community or from the education community, one of the things that I have experienced and I've seen be so powerful is when community leaders sort of go through that dedicated sort of cohort experience, I'm sort of stepping aside from participating in the workforce board. But when you see programs like leadership, whatever, where you pick a city or pick a county, you know, you've got the leadership program. But going through those programs together and building strategy together, sort of setting aside sort of ego turf, brand build, whatever it is, for the betterment of the community is one of those places where I've seen real transformation happen across the country. Number three, though, would be, and this is a little bit about kind of the initial conversation that I talked about recently at the Department of Labor around sort of worker voice and those kinds of things, but I've also, when real transformation happens and people find hope in community, either for the growth of their business or hope for their family, is when they turn outward. And this is a phrase that I've learned from the great work that the Harwood Institute does, Rich Harwood and the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, where decisions are made not in the boardroom, but in the community with trust and experience and the betterment of the other versus the sustaining of a system. So when you're able to not just incorporate different voices or perspectives in a big plan, but create a context in which people are, whether it's a business and a community college, a chancellor of the workforce development program, where they're given the ability to try small things. I'm a big believer, Julian, in the Pebble Theory of Change. Big believer in the Pebble Theory. I've yet to see a big, except for the New Deal, but a big macro level plan. There's so much inertia in systems. There's so much inertia. It's so hard to move those things. And oftentimes people get forgotten, and people of color, people with disabilities, women. You know, they're LGBTQ, people get left out, small business, rural community, like, you know, in those spaces, right? But the Pebble Theory of Change is that people get so sort of, I don't wanna say fed up, but the level of frustration with the current circumstance, you're willing to do this, work with somebody to do this one small thing, to see if change is possible. And that invites another two or three people, this is like the old, the double mint commercial, whatever, you know, tell people, they come through people, right? But the pebble theory is that these little small pebbles thrown into the pond, you throw enough of them in, and you throw them in a frequency where there's more and more and more, and I know your listeners can't see me, but my hand is throwing the pebbles in more quickly and more quickly, right? Then suddenly all those little ripples add up to a big wave of transformation. Right? And they're all headed generally in the same direction. Right? And there's, that's when I think real power happens. So that would be the third thing. Real practical. Just do a small thing, a small thing, set up an internship for four kids to see how your business operates with your school system. Right? You don't have to launch a full-grown apprenticeship strategy though that would be lovely. But like set up a small apprenticeship where four kids get to come in, right? Um, you know, open the invite, you know, we're getting ready in the summertime, but next summer, right? Talk with your, your, your local education agency, whoever your school system is there, right? And say, Hey, listen, I want to invite, you know, I want to invite four or five teachers in to see my business in operation for two or three weeks so they can see it in operation and they can understand like they're preparing kids to go into the world of work. What that actually means, right? And that is not saying that teaching is not work. I have deep, deep respect, married into, and have had deep appreciation for teachers and in our public education system. But give some exposure there. I think those are really practical, easy things to do. Low risk, things that can be done to help understand, build an understanding and build an aspiration within your community for what do we want? What do we want for our kids? What do we want for our seniors? What do we want for all of our neighbors? You know, and I think there can be real power in that and they don't have to be, and it doesn't have to be a big, huge, macro level plan. It's then just trying small things together and building trust and building momentum. Those are things that I think would be the three things that I would say.

Kaitlin: Well, thank you for those steps, Brad. They are incredibly practical and I think there is something, there's so much to be said for thinking about starting small because that's often how the big things do eventually happen, right? So really appreciate your thoughts and insights there and learning so much more about NAWB today. Please listen in to Workforce Central as well. And I guess I would ask you as we close out today's conversation, Brad, are there any other ways that our listeners can continue to learn more about NAWB's work and follow what you're doing?

Brad: Yeah, I mean, you can certainly visit our website, which is NAWB.org. I will tell you that it is, I mean, I don't know how evergreen our podcast will be, but this is the fall of 2024 and we're going through our website reboot. So it'll look a little bit different later this fall. But you can sign up for newsletters, sign up to be part of our advocacy work, sign up to be, you know, so you can get information about our nation's workforce system and sort of learn more in that way. And you can get connected to your local workforce system, which at the end of the day, Kaitlin, I mean, I love it when people sort of click on stuff and sign up for our newsletters, but actually what moves the needle is when they get connected locally and they get involved. I'd much rather have that than, you know, a big email list on my side. I'd much rather have all those folks connected to their local workforce boards and really leaning in together.

Kaitlin: Great, well, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today, Brad. And we appreciate the insights and learning more about the direction that you're taking in NAWB, it's super exciting and we look forward to continuing to watch it all unfold.

Julian: Just to echo Kaitlin, thank you so much for joining us. It's great to hear about your plans. I love the grounded grassroots nature. It really is about doing stuff and...I do think the boards are so much more of a switching point for everything you're describing than people realize and can be more and more so, and certainly under your leadership will be for sure.

Brad: Thanks, y'all. I've enjoyed the time today. Thank you for inviting me to be a part of your conversations as part of Work Forces. And I will also look forward to hearing sort of your future versions of this conversation with other folks. Thank you so much.

Kaitlin: That's all we have for you today. Thank you for listening to Work Forces. We hope that you take away nuggets that you can use in your own work. Thank you to our sponsor, Lumina Foundation. We're also grateful to our wonderful producer, Dustin Ramsdell. You can listen to future episodes at Workforces.info or on Apple, Amazon, and Spotify. Please subscribe, like, and share the podcast with your colleagues and friends.