Kermit Kaleba on Building Quality Credential Programs

Work Forces

In this episode of Work Forces, Kaitlin LeMoine and Julian Alssid kick off season three with a conversation with Kermit Kaleba, Strategy Director of Employment Aligned Credential Programs at Lumina Foundation. Kermit delves into Lumina's mission to increase credential attainment and reduce racial disparities in education and employment. He discusses the challenges and opportunities surrounding the development of high-quality short-term credential programs and their alignment with labor market demand. Kermit also shares insights into the evolving landscape of workforce development and how Lumina is supporting community colleges and other partners in meeting the needs of the 21st-century workforce.

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: Work Forces 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.

Welcome back. Julian, isn't it exciting to be kicking off season three of Work Forces?

Julian: It is indeed, Caitlin. I can't believe it's been 21 episodes and I'm definitely looking forward to this season to continue to unpack the cross-cutting themes and opportunities and challenges that are shaping the future of work and learning. Absolutely. We aim to keep our audience ahead of the curve as the landscape continues to rapidly evolve across education, industry, and training really at the levels of both policy and practice. And we truly appreciate the feedback and engagement we're experiencing with our audience and our guests. So, to kick off this season, we're so glad to welcome Kermit Kaleba, Strategy Director of Employment Aligned Credential Programs for Lumina Foundation. Kermit has been a key player in workforce development and policy for many years. For Lumina, he leads a portfolio designed to increase the number of occupational short-term credential and associate degree programs. Kermit previously served as Managing Director for Policy at National Skills Coalition. He also served as Executive Director of the Washington DC Workforce Investment Council. Kermit has a JD and Bachelor’s Degree from the College of William and Mary, and we are so glad that he's able to join us on this podcast today. Thank you, Kermit.

Kermit Kaleba: Thank you guys for having me here. I’m very excited.

Julian: Yes, Kermit, thank you. And we're thrilled to have you. And I guess to kick us off, we'd love to have you tell us about your background and how you approach your work at Lumina.

Kermit: Let me just, I guess, start by sharing a little bit about Lumina Foundation and the mission of Lumina, and then how I came to be a part of the organization. Lumina Foundation is one of the nation's largest private foundations focused exclusively on post-secondary education and training. We're headquartered in Indianapolis, but we work nationally. And Lumina is known for really for two north stars in our giving strategy. The first is our focus on credential attainment. Back in 2009, Lumina established or set out to establish a national goal of trying to get to 60% of US adults between the ages of 25 and 64 a post-secondary degree or high quality credential, quality post-secondary credential by the year 2025. And that goal has been, we think, very influential in helping to drive policy and practice in the higher education space. We've seen about a 16 percentage point increase in credential attainment since we announced that goal. So we still have progress to make, but I think we are making progress towards that goal. And the other North Star in our giving is our commitment to racial equity. We're an equity first organization. We know that one of the reasons why we haven't met the goal of the 60% goal is because of historical choices, barriers that we've created for learners of color in education and employment and in other spaces. And so in our grant making, in addition to looking to expand credential attainment, we are also looking to reduce racial disparities and make sure that learners of color have meaningful opportunities for education that leads to good jobs and further educational opportunities. A little bit about myself. So I, as you mentioned, I lead a portfolio called the Employment Aligned Credential Program Portfolio. And that portfolio is focusing on, we know that many adult learners are looking for shorter term credentials. Folks are looking to get into the labor market quickly, looking to update their skills. They're often facing family or work circumstances that make it difficult for them to do longer term educational pathways. And so we know a lot of adults are hoping to take short term credentials to be able to move quickly into the labor market or advance in the labor market. And our portfolio is really, how do we make those credentials, how do we identify those credentials that work? How do we help people get into those pathways? How do we make sure that they align with labor market demand? How do we make sure that they connect to further educational pathways? And how do we make sure that those opportunities are equally distributed or fairly and equitably distributed? I came to this work, my first real introduction to the world of short-term credentials. And it is really, it's kind of an interesting ecosphere. I started working on this back, you folks may remember in the last decade we had the federal government was funding what were known as the TAACCCT grants, the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training Grants, I think is the acronym. And these were grants, federal grants that were meant to support industry community college partnerships. It was $2 billion over four years and these were really, really popular grants in obviously in the community college space as community colleges were looking to build partnerships with industry and build pathways into targeted sectors. And one of the, one thing we started hearing in 2015 or 2016 from our college partners was we are building, you know, these grants are great, we're building these programs and these pathways, we're working with employers, we think these are going to create good opportunities for workers in our area. But for a lot of the programs we're creating, they aren't eligible for federal Pell grants or financial assistance because they're 10-week programs, they're 12-week programs, they're designed to be quick, they're designed to get you quickly into a new job. And the Pell Grant program only covers programs of 16 weeks or longer. And so even though we're doing what we're supposed to be doing, we're building the kinds of programs that industry is asking for. We can't get people to get into these programs because of the financial barriers. And so I, at the time, you know, I was the, I was doing federal policy at National Skills Coalition and we thought, oh, this seems like a problem we can solve. If these are federally funded projects, we should be able to make it so that federal financial aid is available for these, for the credentials and the programs that we're creating. And, you know, here we are, you know, 10 years later and I'm still working on this issue.

Julian: A century later, or not quite.

Kermit: Well, so that led me to start working on Short-term Pell, or Workforce Pell as it's sometimes called. And so we worked with, when I was at National Skills Coalition, worked with Senator Kane's office around the introduction of what was called the JOBS Act. And one of the things that came out of the, you know, when once the JOBS Act was introduced and the conversation started to grow around the possibility of expanding Pell short-term programs, there were some natural questions that came up about quality, right? So as folks know, there are a lot of non-degree credentials that are out there in the ecosystem. Credential Engine put out an estimate of about a million separate individual credentials. For job seekers, for businesses, for institutions, there's often a lot of questions about how do we know what quality is, how do we define quality, how do we get good information about whether or not these credentials provide you with the skills and the competencies that you need to be successful. And that in turn led us to a project looking at how are states defining quality non-degree credentials in their workforce system, in their higher education system, in their secondary system. And that in turn led me when this opportunity came up at Lumina to make the leap and really start to think about how do we support better, how do we answer that question of what are quality credentials, what are the mechanisms that we need to have in place to identify those credentials and to build those credentials and to make sure that people have the supports that they need to, not just to get the credentials, but to be successful on the job.

Kaitlin: We appreciate learning that story and that journey and can certainly see how it's brought you to this point. Can you describe some of the projects within your portfolio at Lumina? I'm sure some of them connect to what you just shared, but we'd love to hear a little bit more.

Kermit: I have sort of three kind of discrete sets of projects that I support. I have one set of invest. One set of projects is what we sort of inside we call our supply side strategy. And that is, one of the things we've learned about non-degree credentials is that we don't have a particularly robust policy infrastructure in this country around non-degree credentials. What I mean by that is we don't have financial aid for a lot of these programs, particularly on the non-credit side of community colleges, even as those are important. We think they're pretty somewhere in the neighborhood of 3.7 million adults who are enrolled in the non-credit side of community colleges every year. But many of them are not eligible for federal or state financial aid. Institutions don't often many states don't don't fund workforce development or non-credit programs through their their institutional, their formula funding for institutions. Many states don't have particularly robust data on workforce or non-credit programs that offer through community colleges. And students often aren't offered the same level of support services that their counterparts on the for credit and the more traditional academic side are. And so one of the theories that we have is that this lack of policy infrastructure is sort of holding us back in a way. If we were to be more intentional about making dedicated investments and tracking those investments that we would see better outcomes in the workforce development space that if we had, if states and other stakeholders had skin in the game about the outcomes for these programs in a meaningful way that we would see, we would see better outcomes. And so in this set of projects, we invest in research to better understand the landscape of non-degree and non-credit programs and the policies that govern them. So for example, we've been funding the Association of Community College Trustees to look at funding formulas for dual enrollment and non-credit and for credit programming at the state level to better understand how are states investing. And we've also done some research around state credential definitions, quality credential definitions under Perkins, et cetera. And we fund some technical assistance with states that are looking at expanding their financial aid programs for non-credit to help them think about student eligibility, programmatic eligibility, and funding levels to make sure that they're being intentional about helping people get access to high quality credentials. The other two sets of work that we invest are fairly similar, but we also have a number of projects that are more on the programmatic side. So one of the things we know about non-degree credentials, workforce credentials, is that you need alignment with industry. And one of the best ways to think about aligning credentials with employer needs is what are often referred to as industry or sector partnerships. So bringing together multiple employers in a local or regional industry with their community college partners, and sometimes other partners, to build pathways into and through those industries. So we are funding a number of projects that are looking at this intersection between industry and community colleges and in many cases working with other stakeholders around diversification of those pipelines. So in addition to making sure that the colleges are delivering credentials that lead to good jobs or trying to lead to good jobs. We're also trying to think about how do we expand opportunities for learners of color in key industries like healthcare and in various manufacturing and IT sectors where we know there are good job opportunities, but those job opportunities have not always been available or readily accessible for particularly for workers of color. And then a third set of investments that we've been making is is in the infrastructure space. We knew when I first started in 2021, there was a lot of discussion about the possibility of a big new infrastructure bill coming from the federal government, Congress and the administration. And we wanted to see if we could help position community colleges in particular as partners in building the workforce that would be needed to help support those infrastructure projects. Do you hear President Biden talk a lot about the millions of jobs that we created through the IIJA and the IRA and the CHIPS Act and how many of those jobs won't require a four-year degree. Well, we wanna make sure that we have the training and workforce infrastructure to address those job opportunities. And so we have a set of investments that we've made in California and Virginia and other places around trying to better position community colleges and technical colleges as training partners in that space.

Julian: So Kermit, given the investments, the portfolio, your experience, Lumina's experience more broadly, does Lumina, like what does Lumina see as credentials that work?

Kermit: That's a great question. I'll speak for myself. And we do have a, as part of our credential attainment goal, when we calculate our credential attainment goal, we do include some non-degree credentials, certificates and certifications as long as they meet a particular wage threshold. So I always get this wrong, but I believe it's 15% above what you could earn with a high school diploma. So that's one way of thinking about defining value is does it offer a wage premium over not having a credential? I think there are other definitions of value that are also important. One of the things that I know we look at is, does it lead to further educational pathways? So a credential that gets you a job is important. We want to make sure that people can get employed. But does it stack to further educational pathways? And is there a good, are there are there reasonable policies and practices in place that allow people to stack? I think one of the things we've been talking about in this space for a long time is the importance of creating stackable credentials to ensure that learners who may not be able to stay in education for two years or four years at a time, giving them the opportunity to get education in bite-sized chunks and then come back at different points in their career and expand their skills. We know that's really important. We also know the data shows that it isn't happening as much as we'd hoped when we first started talking about stackability, Lumina has funded research around stackability. And we found that there are very few folks who, for example, start on the non-credit side, end out going on to the for-credit side. And I think that's something we as a field need to ask some deep questions about and try to better understand why that's not happening. It makes sense on paper, but I think one question is, is it really aligned with what people are experiencing when they're in the labor market and in life? And I would say the other, we're also interested in understanding, coming back to your question of what is a valuable credential? I think we're also interested in sort of understanding the value of the credential from the demand side. So how do we make sure that the credentials that are being, that are being created and offered really do provide the skills and the competencies that are necessary to do the job. So just as it's inefficient and wasteful for someone to spend time from a learner perspective getting a credential if it doesn't align with labor market value or align with labor market demand, the same is true from an employer perspective. You want to try to reduce the gap between what somebody needs to know to do the job on day one and what the credential is offering. And so I think we're also interested in looking at it from that perspective.

Kaitlin: Thanks so much for that response, Kermit. And I think, you know, building on that, I think you're already starting to touch upon it. But, you know, as you're seeing your, these projects unfold under these different buckets or themes, what are some of the challenges and successes that you're seeing in the different projects?

Kermit: One one obvious challenge that we uh... we have been running into is uh... you know as i mentioned Lumina is very committed to uh... reducing eliminating racial disparities and uh... and helping to dismantle the uh... structural racism that has impacted so many people in this country's history and continues to have impacts for for learners and workers of color today uh... anything one of the challenges that we have been facing is that there has been this backlash to diversity, equity and inclusion in many parts of the country. And that has, I think, limited the ability of some of our, certainly our higher education partners to fully participate in some of the projects that we want to support because of concerns about being, running afoul of policies or just the political climate in their states or in their parts of the country. While that has been a challenge, it also then creates an opportunity, particularly for our employer partners as we're making these investments, to, you know, employers will tell you that diversity, diversifying the workforce is not just the right thing to do, but it's the economically imperative thing to do. And so I think we are interested moving forward in thinking about how employers can be contributing to uh, uh, be contributing in this space and, and signaling the importance of diversifying their talent pipelines and making sure that they have, uh, that they are able to engage everyone in their community and, and, and not just, um, not just the folks who have always benefited from these investments. Um, I think that's so, so it is a challenge, but I think also, hopefully there's an opportunity here. Uh, I would say another challenge that we're seeing is candidly, and I think we're probably somewhat guilty of this, is initiative fatigue. Community colleges are really marvelous institutions. They do so much, right? They provide traditional academic instruction, leading to a two-year and in some cases, a four-year degree increasingly. They provide education and training. They provide dual enrollment. They provide community services. And they do so often without the level of resources that other higher education institutions get. They're positioned as the low cost option for both academic and workforce training. And I think we agree that they are amazing institutions, but they are often asked to be, they're being asked to do a lot with very little. And so one of the things we try to do with our grant making is create a space to be able to have conversations or to be able to do work that may not otherwise be able to be prioritized. But of course the challenge I think a lot of the institutions we're working with are facing is the, there's only, you know, there's only 40 hours or 50 hours or 60 hours in the week and you can only do so much. And so I think that's, I think that's one of the things we're just being, we're very conscious of is, you know, making sure that we want to create the opportunity in the space for our partners to be as innovative and strategic as possible. But we also need to recognize that they have day jobs. And so even as they want to kind of move the ball forward and be innovative and forward thinking, there is a day-to-day reality that they have to deal with. And I think that is always a tension in the philanthropic space is making sure that you understand and respect that balance that you're asking of folks even as you try to partner towards a new goal. So I think those are the two kind of biggest challenges that I can think of. I would say, well, and I should say there's also, I think, a lot of expectations being put on these institutions without necessarily a lot of support for some of the things. So, for example, we know community colleges are being brought into a number of federal grants that are coming out from the many agencies. And I think in many cases, there's the money is there, but there isn't necessarily there isn't necessarily an opportunity or a space to talk about how do we how do we do this? How do we do this? Well. How do we learn from each other? And so that's something that I think we're starting to watch for the future is are there opportunities for us to help support institutions, community colleges, and other partners as they're looking to implement these federally funded programs? Can we help them be more effective and can we help create spaces for them to learn about best practices and lessons learned in the implementation of these exciting new funding opportunities?

Kaitlin: It does seem to me like a challenge in this work is just, and Julian and I talk about this a lot, but just how fast the world is moving and how fast the landscape is evolving and the complexity of how is it that you go about implementing a new initiative as maybe the expectation is you should already have the results and it's like, but we're just getting started. And then by the time you design your program, things have shifted again. And I mean, it's a really complicated space. I mean, I think it always has been, but it feels like things are moving faster and faster. I don't know if you have that impression as well, but that's something we've seen in our work.

Kermit: I still think of myself as relatively new to philanthropy, even though I've now been in the field for almost 4 years. And that is, I will say that is something that I have been struck by is the, sort of the evolution within, from when we have this initial idea to where we are a year later or two years later. And we generally, at Lumina, we generally do two-year grants. Yeah, it's right. There's the work changes, circumstances change, people change, the political circumstances change. And I think one of the things that we always try to do, Lumina is we wanna maintain our North stars, right? We wanna maintain our focus on credential attainment, We want to maintain our focus on racial equity. Those things remain paramount for us. But at the same time, we also want to be flexible and understand that the best laid plans don't always turn out the way you expect. And you learn new things as you're implementing a project, and you need to be prepared to utilize that new information, those lessons learned and incorporate that into what you're thinking. And so I hope, I like to think that we, in my conversations with the folks that I'm supporting and the groups that I'm supporting, that we do create space to pivot, to change as needed, to adjust to new circumstances. While at the same time, trying to, again, make sure that we're keeping in mind where we were trying to go in the first place. And if it's not possible, you know, then what is possible and what can we take away from, what are the lessons we learn? I think one nice thing about being in philanthropy that I discovered is you always learn something. You know, every project, every initiative teaches you something about the world and about the field and the craft that we've chosen. And I think that the key thing is to make sure that you're evaluate and reflect on what it is that you've learned and how that can inform your thinking moving forward.

Julian: So Kermit, let’s put a pin in that for a second. I want to move us to kind of what you're learning and how it's influencing you. Another trend or something that keeps coming up in our conversations, Kaitlin, and my thinking having sort of toiled in the workforce fields now for 35 years is that, when I started this work, this was like the fringiest of fringe work, right? And I mean, I think it probably was somewhat when you got into it as well, Kermit. And now it's also just front and center. So not only is there this like swirl of stuff, but it's like, you know, these under-resourced colleges are now, you know, like in the spotlight, like never before as well.

Kermit: Yeah, having been in this space for 20 years, I would agree with that observation that workforce development has definitely shifted in terms of its importance to policymakers and the public perception. I think there's a couple of reasons for that. I think we know that there are some changed perceptions about the value of higher education, I think some questions about the return on investment and a greater sense from policymakers and from job seekers and from businesses that they want to see a clear and immediate return to higher education. And workforce development is seen in many ways as a kind of a good solution to that problem. And I think part of the reason why you're seeing a growing interest in short term workforce credentials from policymakers is because of that belief that this is about getting people the skills and the competencies they need to be successful in the labor market and doing so as quickly and as efficiently as possible. One of the things we've been tracking is state financial aid for short-term workforce programs. And our most recent estimate, our partners at HCM Strategists estimate that there's about $5.5 billion that have been allocated at the state level for programs that can support tuition assistance for non-degree programs. And that's up from like three and a half billion two years ago. We saw in the, during the pandemic, you saw a lot of states adopting non-degree credentials as a solution. So I agree with you. I think there's a lot of attention. I think though, one of the challenges that we face is because higher education and workforce were seen as such distinct spheres for so long, some of these policy changes are happening kind of in sort of dribs and drabs. So there may be tuition assistance for non-degree credentials, but it doesn't necessarily mean that there are data systems in place that can count those credentials, or support services that can help make sure that those students can be successful, or institutional capacity to help build the programs for which that tuition assistance is made available. And I think that's the, I think, going to be the real test moving forward is can we translate this enthusiasm for workforce development in an abstract sense, right? This concept of getting people skills quickly and efficiently, can we translate that into an ecosystem, an infrastructure that actually does provide the supports that we know are necessary for people to be successful? I also think w have to be honest with ourselves that, I mentioned the estimate that we have a million different credentials out there. We have to acknowledge that some of them just aren't valuable or may not be worth the time you're spending on them. And so the promise of non-degree credentials is that they can do, that they can get people some wage premium in a relatively short period of time. And we know how important that is for a lot of learners because time is the one thing they don't have. Right. So it is, I think this is an important space for us to continue to explore because we want to be able to deliver on that promise. I think we, part of what we need to acknowledge is that we, we don't, we aren't able to deliver that promise with every credential quite yet. So the challenge for the field is how do we do this in a way that lives up to the promise for workers and for businesses, and is a good use of our public resources? And that I think is the kind of the evolution now and the challenge for the field today is, if we give you the resources that you've never had before, can you take those resources and run with them?

Julian: So as we try to move towards a more perfect workforce development union, what are the factors that are influencing your thinking moving forward, Kermit?

Kermit: Well, I'll tell you. So I think there's a lot of money out there now for workforce development. Although, interestingly, money that's coming from places that we probably weren't expecting. So if you think about the, we talk a lot about the three big federal infrastructure laws, the IIJA, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the CHIPS Act. Much of the money, very little money for workforce development went to the Department of Labor and the Department of Education. A lot of the money that is gonna be used to create jobs and support job training is coming from agencies like the Department of Transportation or the Department of Energy or the Department of Commerce. So demand side agencies rather than the supply side agencies. And...So that's both a challenge and an opportunity for us. It's a challenge because I think for traditional higher education and workforce professionals, if you're used to working with your state labor agency or state higher education agency, you don't necessarily have a relationship with your state energy department or your water resources department and your municipality. And so there's a relationship building component and a really very important time component right, because the money is only going to be available for so long. So I think that it is it is a real challenge that is if you're if you're waiting for these these these new players, these new these new partners to come to you, they may, but they may not. And so it is kind of imperative, I think, for higher education to be more be be ready to start the conversation and make themselves available to be a part of these conversations. But then, of course, it's a real opportunity, right? Because I think we know that the funds that are out there, there are a lot of different job projections. But we know that there are supposed to be millions of jobs that will be created, particularly jobs that don't require a four-year degree. And so the opportunity is there for community colleges and other workforce partners to really step in and be the providers of education and training that help people get those jobs and advance into careers and further opportunities. So that's one thing that I'm thinking about is just the importance of taking advantage of this moment in time where we always complain in the workforce space about not having enough resources to do the work. And now if we're thinking creatively about how to build these partnerships, there's literally billions of dollars out there that can be used for workforce development, which is great to figure out how to do it. And I will say, the other thing that I am keeping an eye on is just making sure that we stay true to the equity goals that have been set. I think one of the things that this administration has done across a lot of these investments is really signal the importance of ensuring that these job creation opportunities aren't just are replicating sort of the same patterns that we've seen in these industries that we really are thinking about how to create new opportunities for women and for workers of color and other underrepresented worker populations. I think we have a tremendous opportunity and space to use this to really think creatively with employers and education and training providers and other community partners to really be thinking about what are the barriers that have kept people out of particular industries or particular occupations? How do we use this moment in time to be true to, I think, what our country's founding mission is, which is to create economic prosperity for all or to allow for economic prosperity for all. So I think that's something that I'm continuing to watch, is how do we structure the work in a way that allows us to really to follow through?

Kaitlin: Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like we could ask so many more questions, Kermit. So based on your lessons learned and, you know, and what you're thinking present day, what are some practical steps our audience can take to become forces in designing scalable employment aligned credentials and related initiatives?

Kermit: You know, I do think there's some tried and true practices around, you know, to the extent that our goal here is to help people find jobs. This seems fairly obvious and banal, but thinking about employer engagements and making sure that you're thinking about, are there jobs? What do those jobs require? When are those jobs gonna come online? I think this is an issue that we often forget, is the sort of hiring the hiring cycles that employers have and when they're bringing people on. I think building strong partnerships between employers and education and training providers and other stakeholders is really crucial. I think the other stakeholders are really important. I think one of the things we've seen is that if you're trying to diversify your talent pipelines, oftentimes the biggest barrier is trust, right? Do you have a, you don't have a strong history between industries and often between institutions and underrepresented communities. So engaging trusted partners in that space who can help broker and build trust is important. I think we're seeing that a lot. I think being prepared to have honest conversations with employers about what's working, I think put a lot of the pressure for the success of training on education and training providers without really thinking about what is it about the jobs that you're offering, whether it's the pay or the benefits or the work climate that makes you an attractive employer and makes somebody want to stay with you. I think we should be thinking about a training program as not just entering a class and exiting a class, but really you know, that first six months or the first year of employment is the if the program isn't working because people don't want to stay at a particular company or don't or aren't happy in the industry. Are you are you as employers doing everything you can to keep folks and are you are there things that you could be doing that would make it easier for you to not only find that the talent you're looking for, but to keep the talent to me. And one of the things we've we've been seeing in some of our earlier grants was um, you know, particularly around racial and gender equity, uh, you know, companies very excited about bringing in all female cohorts or really focusing on populations of color. But when folks showed up, you know, for their first day on the job, they found that the work environment wasn't particularly conducive and wasn't very, wasn't very friendly. And I think that's, that, that is something that you need to start to think about is what is the employer role in education and training beyond just sort of identifying what they're, you know, being a passive recipient of talent, how can you be an active partner in the success of your workforce? And so I think those are just some things that I think I wanna, we are interested in continuing to explore is how do you build tighter and more organic partnerships between employers and education training providers, particularly community colleges.

Julian: And Kermit, while I know you're in a policy role and saw that as speaking to the practitioners truth is number one. It's amazing advice and I would also Just sort of interject and for policymakers make sure all of that can happen.

Kermit: That's right. That’s true. And I would say is what you're trying to which is clearly what you're trying to do and I and I think anything I will say this is the I think one of the one of the challenges we see right now is there's a lot of it, you know as you going back to the earlier question, Julian, there is a lot of enthusiasm for workforce right in this moment. I think you have a lot of policymakers who'd like to talk about the importance of workforce development. But it's important not to lose that energy, right? We don't want, we don't want this to be a scenario where two years from now, we sort of say, remember how we were investing in workforce? Wasn't that fun? Like we really, this is a, and I think that that's a, you know, called a, not just a policy makers, but to the field as well as to like, we have a moment in time and we should take advantage of it. And it won't be easy. This was never easy work to do. Resources are part of it, but it's still, there's a lot that goes beyond just the dollars and cents. But I do think we have, I think we are, I think you're right, we are in a unique period in history and in this moment where workforce development has its chance to really shine. And I'm excited to be a part of this field in this moment. I’m really optimistic about the future and hopeful for the future.

Julian: Yeah, great. Well, and on that positive note, Kermit, as much as I would love to continue this conversation for several more hours, how can listeners learn more and continue to follow your work as it unfolds?

Kermit: Certainly visit lumina.org and we'll post publications and information about our grantmaking on a regular basis. So that's, I think, the best way to kind of continue to follow her work. And I would say I'm gonna be out on the road traveling to a number of conferences. And this is a genuine invitation to anybody who may see me at a conference. I'm always excited to spend 20 minutes talking about your work and hearing your ideas. That's part of the, for me, the best part of the job is going out and talking to people about what they're learning and what they're seeing. And so...always excited to talk to folks. Or you can shoot me an email at kkaleba at lumina dot org, and I'm always excited to jump on the phone and hear what you're doing.

Julian: Kermit, we so appreciate you taking the time to talk with us today. It's great conversation. So look forward to following your work and to keep on continuing to talk with you and checking back into the future.

Kermit: Well, thank you so much for having me. And thanks so much. And congratulations on making it to a third year of the podcast.

Kaitlin: Thank you. We really appreciate that and appreciate the support. 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.