Feb 14, 2023
00:00:00Larry
You know, I think economic and workforcedevelopment is a team sport. And I think when I think of the futureof work, I think all of us are engaged in this work. And I don'tthink Larry Holt or Steven or LAEDC has any lock-on ideas.
00:00:17Larry
I do think we're focused on what I wouldconsider sustained, proven strategies for growing our economy. ButI want to make this open-source. I want to hear from our listenerson what are the areas of opportunity that you see?
00:00:36Christina
The workforce landscape is rapidly changing,and educators and their institutions need to keep up. Preparingstudents before they enter the workforce to make our communitiesand businesses stronger is at the core of getting an education.
00:00:49Christina
But we need to understand how to change andadjust so that we can begin to project where things are headedbefore we even get there. So, how do we begin to predict thefuture?
00:01:01Salvatrice
Hi, I'm Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President ofEconomic and Workforce Development at Pasadena City College andhost of this podcast.
00:01:09Christina
And I'm Christina Barsi, producer and co-hostof this podcast.
00:01:13Salvatrice
And we are starting the conversation about thefuture of work. We'll explore topics like how education can partnerwith industry, how to be more equitable, and how to attain one ofour highest goals, more internships and PCC students in theworkforce.
00:01:27Salvatrice
We at Pasadena City College want to lead thecharge in closing the gap between what our students are learningand what the demands of the workforce will be once they enter. Thisis a conversation that impacts all of us. You, the employers, thepolicymakers, the educational institutions, and the community as awhole.
00:01:47Christina
We believe change happens when we worktogether, and it all starts with having a conversation. I'mChristina Barsi.
00:01:54Salvatrice
And I'm Salvatrice Cummo, and this is theFuture of Work.
00:02:00Salvatrice
Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Future ofWork Podcast. I am your host, Salvatrice Cummo. Today, we'll betalking about economic and workforce development as subject nearand dear to my heart, of course. And with the most pressing issuesthe LA area is facing. In this space, we'll be discussing whatstrategies we should be implementing in our own organizations tobetter prepare the workforce.
00:02:22Salvatrice
With that said, we would like to welcome LarryHolt, Vice President of Economic and Workforce Development at theLos Angeles County Economic Development Corporation. Larry is anational top 50 economic development executive who has proven hisability to translate the needs of governments, citizens, andbusinesses.
00:02:42Salvatrice
He is driven to create business and socialimpact through creativity, innovation, and strategic relationshipswithin his new role at the LAEDC. Thank you for joining us today,Larry. Welcome.
00:02:56Larry
Good morning, Salvatrice. Thank you so muchfor having me this morning.
00:02:59Salvatrice
You bet. You know, I have so many questionsfor you today, and this may be one of a few episodes that we dobecause economic and workforce development is so big and fluid andevolving and ever-changing. So, if it's okay with you, let's justdive right on in and get started.
00:03:19Larry
Absolutely.
00:03:21Salvatrice
Excellent. Excellent. Well, let's just startwith the fact that your background is so impressive, and I wat tospend some time talking about that. So, if you could tell us alittle bit about your history and why this space of economic andworkforce development continues to be such of interest to you.
00:03:37Larry
Well, thank you for that and thank you forallowing me to be on the podcast this morning. And so, in terms ofmy background, let's get the couple of obvious things out of theway. I'm a gay man from Alabama, so that's why you hear a southernaccent. So, I may even get a "y'all" or two in there.
00:03:53Larry
I began my career in the Southeast and havegotten to work all over the country really. And so, I've reallygotten to live a lot of my dreams. But I think today, we think interms of how our communities are different. But I can tell you thatone thing I've seen from Alabama to Washington state is that peoplecare about the future of their communities.
00:04:19Larry
And so, that's why I believe economic andworkforce development is so important to communities all across theUSA. And I feel very fortunate that I've gotten to do work, whichallows me to shape the future for the communities I've had theprivilege of serving in. So, I'm a new Californian.
00:04:40Salvatrice
Nice. Welcome.
00:04:41Larry
I know. The weather is so amazing. Like peopleget mad at clouds and I'm like, "Y'all, this is pretty good." So,as I'm watching my friend send me pictures of snow-covered Texastoday, so I couldn't be happier to be here and to get to knowcommunity members across Los Angeles County as we work to shapewhat LAEDC's mission is of a reimagined Los Angeles economy.
00:05:11Salvatrice
That's right. I'd also like to share that youjust started a few months ago here. Brand new, brand new. So, let'sreally kind of acknowledge that and honor that, because I met youat the very, very tail end of last year.
00:05:22Larry
At the Christmas party.
00:05:23Salvatrice
At the Christmas party, and we had a blast. Wehad a blast, it was a lot of fun. And I was really intrigued byyour background and your vision for economic and workforcedevelopment through the lens of LAEDC.
00:05:35Salvatrice
So, tell me, how has it been since the lasttime we met? You know, how have you gotten your bearings around LA- and LA is ginormous, if that's even a word. It's huge, it's huge.And so, where do you start in these first few months?
00:05:48Larry
Wow, yeah. So, how do you boil the ocean?
00:05:51Salvatrice
That's a good analogy.
00:05:54Larry
Things have progressed nicely, I would share.So, some of the work I've been doing in the initial stages here isreally focusing on LAEDC's strategic plan developed with many, manymembers of our community and many great professionals in theworkforce and economic development fields already working here.
00:06:14Larry
And we're about midway on that plan. So, Ithink maybe it would be helpful if I shared some high-levelthoughts about where we're going, which is LAEDC has ahuman-centered economic development approach.
00:06:29Larry
And so, what I mean by that is, if you thinkabout how economic and workforce development systems tend tooperate in most of the country, it's around they're kind of overlybusiness-focused, I might say. And let's just focus on growth asopposed to why don't we focus on the whole system?
00:06:49Larry
Why don't we really start as a premise thatwhat's going to drive meaningful pathways for our citizens, for oursmall businesses, for our underserved and stressed communities?Realizing that economic growth is a great driver for some of thoseDEI goals that we want to see happen in our community.
00:07:08Larry
So, in terms of what I've been able to unpackso far, and as a check-in from our last meeting, that's kind of thework I've been doing and seeing what our progress looks like andwhere we're going. And just to elaborate a little bit.
00:07:23Larry
I talked about kind of the problems in othercommunities, and we have problems too. So, when I think about LAcounty, I was looking at job growth numbers, justa real simplemetric. And LA has been hit really hard by the pandemic and out of190 communities, we are about 141st first in being back to 2019 jobnumbers. So, C-, maybe D+.
00:07:49Larry
So, there's a lot of work to do, but I'mencouraged incredibly by the great support I see across our workfellows and economic development partnerships and partners.
00:08:02Salvatrice
Nice. Using the human-centered, is that whatyou called it? Human-centered approach to economic and workforcedevelopment?
00:08:08Larry
That's right.
00:08:09Salvatrice
That's right. I got that right.
00:08:11Larry
I love that concept.
00:08:12Salvatrice
Using that framework, in again, the short timethat you've been here, you spoke briefly about the job gap and theneed for revitalizing and bringing our deployment back to thenumbers that it was back in 2019. Is there, I should say, one issuethat stands out to you loud and clear using that human-centeredapproach to economic and workforce development?
00:08:35Larry
I think the one issue that really stands outto me, and it's neither positive nor negative, but just mostly anobservation, is we've got a lot of systems, but are we as leadersreally being intentional and doing the work it takes to achievethat alignment?
00:08:52Larry
And I think there is a lot of collaborationthat takes place within LA county, but again, a data point is LAhas the highest poverty rate in the state of California. So, we'vegot to take that seriously and really redouble our efforts toensure the greatest possible alignment to deliver on thosesustainable, equitable goals that I know are key to what ourorganization is trying to accomplish and many of our other partnersas well. So, we can't afford silos.
00:09:22Salvatrice
We can't. Absolutely not.
00:09:24Larry
That's an area that I'm particularlypassionate about is that sort of intentionality. And at thebeginning, you referenced an ability to translate. And I think it'sincumbent on all of us to try and be translation pros. Becausetranslation to me, is a key hallmark of leadership, and that's howwe bring people into the conversation. So , we're all guilty ofjargon.
00:09:46Salvatrice
That's right.
00:09:47Larry
Just because our work is kind of specialized,but sometimes that language does not serve our communities in termsof being translated so everybody understands, and can take part andbe visible and be a part of the conversation in a reimagined LosAngeles.
00:10:01Salvatrice
And leads me to think about too, is one of thetopics I always like to talk about, and I haven't been reallysuccessful at unpacking, is system alignment. And our systems don'ttalk to each other, let alone the jargon that we use to ourcommunities and the stakeholders at large.
00:10:21Salvatrice
And we are in a real unique space right nowwith emerging leaders like yourself and I, and Steven, and withKelly LeBlanco. And like there's a lot of us kind of in this spacethat are new and emerging leaders, and I think that now is reallythe time to do what you just said, is alignment with our systems,alignment with our language, alignment with our programs -alignment, alignment, alignment. So, I'd love that concept and thatprocess
00:10:48Larry
Well, because we're trying to achieve scale.This is a workforce of 5 million people. We can't come up withboutique programs that only serve even in the most underservedcommunities. We need to achieve that skill. And that's going totake alignment. You did just mention all my favorite people.
00:11:04Salvatrice
I know they're all my favorite people too.
00:11:06Larry
You know, I moved here because of Steven.
00:11:08Salvatrice
Is that right?
00:11:09Larry
Yeah, well, I mean, for a lot of reasons. Idid have some family in California, but I love California.
00:11:15Salvatrice
Where's superior state, Larry.
00:11:18Larry
I mean, it's pretty awesome but there's a lotof problems too. But I guess I'm someone that's embraced challengesin my career. I've worked in Oregon and Washington and now,California, so I've worked up and down the west coast, and believeI do have some insights into where our challenges are and where ouropportunities are.
00:11:38Larry
So, I'm excited to be here. I'm excited bySteven's vision. I may be kind of inferring some of what yourquestion was on let's continue to unpack how do we ... so we knowwe can't silo, we know we need to build systems that scale, how dowe do that?
00:11:54Larry
And so, that's where I think Steven's visionof a five pillars approach is so valuable. And let me kind of shareabout that.
00:12:04Larry
Where LAEDC is going is breaking down our ownsilos. So, we want to eat our own dog food here. And so, we wantour internal systems of our Institute for Applied Economics, whichis our research team, our business assistance team, our workforcedevelopment team, our foreign direct investment, and attractionpiece. And finally, to feed into our cluster development piece.
00:12:28Larry
So, I've kind of outlined the five key tacticswe'll utilize to break down those systems, but let me tell you whyI'm excited about it, and you know why I think it's scalable.
00:12:37Larry
So, there's work happening along the economicand workforce development continuum within all of those individualpillars. Where our opportunity is all of those act as inputs forgaining market intelligence. So, our workforce development systemscan be interacting with our friends in the LA researchconsortium.
00:12:57Larry
Our business assistance team can be gatheringmarket intel from our supply chain, from our small businesses, fromour historically underutilized businesses. And finally, our clusterand FDI pieces can be getting real-world and actionableintelligence from industry.
00:13:14Larry
And that can all be fed back into our researchwe're doing to really refine and bring about research that allowsus to continue the work of building scalable programs that centerour communities at the heart of that. So, I mean, that's reallyexciting to me.
00:13:30Larry
And I'll kind of pick on my industry a littlebit. You know, what I love about it as well is it's a sustainableproven model. And too often in our field - I know workforcedevelopment doesn't chase fads, but economic development can getexcited by the new shiny object.
00:13:50Larry
But we have decades and decades of experienceshowing that a cluster-based approach is really how you build up aworkforce, supply chains, and an industry where you begin to haveplace-based advantages. And place-based advantages is a really keyimportant concept for all of us in economic and workforcedevelopment.
00:14:12Salvatrice
Now, for those who don't understand, what doesthat mean?
00:14:14Larry
So, as we think about occupations and pathwaysand careers and investment attraction opportunities, one of thethings we really at LAEDC want to have a keen eye on is where do wehave advantages?
00:14:29Larry
And let me use an example of not just where dowe have advantages, but where are the industries that offermeaningful pathways for our citizens and have extensive supplychains, so that can have additional money velocity throughout oureconomy for the small business community as well.
00:14:48Larry
This is in an essence, how economies work andhow we can shape our future here in Los Angeles. So, when I thinkabout place-based advantages, I mean some of the obvious ones wherewe do have place-based advantages are media, digital media,creativity, that continuum.
00:15:04Larry
So, clearly, Los Angeles has seen a lot ofmoney velocity out of our historic hub as the entertainment centerof the world. There's other industries like aerospace with deep,deep supply chains and that offer amazing career pathways to ourcitizens.
00:15:22Larry
And finally, an emerging industry that wethink a lot about is the biotech industry where I believe thenumbers like around 60% of the jobs don't require a bachelor'sdegree. The great thing there is with biotech is that'suniversity-driven as well. So, how do we loop in our higher edpartners to really create an ecosystem? I can give you a negativeexample too.
00:15:43Salvatrice
Okay. Yeah, please do.
00:15:45Larry
So, just to illuminate this and unpack it alittle more, there's a lot of financial services in Los Angeles.Financial services is an industry with good-paying jobs, but whatare LA's advantages for the financial services industry? Or putmore directly, what does LA have to offer that Phoenix doesn't?
00:16:05Larry
So, that's just me being real. And so,perhaps, that negative example really illuminates what we'relooking for when we think about where do we have inherentplace-based advantages.
00:16:16Larry
So, to drill that down even further, you lookat biotech and you look at all the NIH dollars coming into UCLAthat continue to drive the research ecosystem. Again, higher edwith aerospace and Caltech and the NASA Jet Propulsion laboratory,nobody else has that. And then Hollywood, maybe we take it forgranted.
00:16:36Larry
I don't know, I still get excited seeing theHollywood sign. You know, that Hollywood sign offers a lot ofopportunity, I think for creatives and entrepreneurship too. Imean, in our world of economic and workforce development we tend tothink a lot in terms of careers, and maybe a more nine to fiveoriented approach.
00:16:55Larry
But in media, a lot of those jobs work forpeople that with the requisite skills, really desire flexibility intheir careers and can contract for digital designers and digitalentertainers of the world. So, one of the things that's interestingto me is that flexibility, because we know we have a lot of workingparents out there.
00:17:16Larry
And so, how do we think broadly about what ourcustomers are? So, again, I'm probably talking too long, but I getreally excited about this.
00:17:25Salvatrice
For sure, for sure. And I'd like to reallykind of underscore what you just said about entrepreneurship, andif there's one thing that this pandemic taught us is theflexibility and is the ability to just transform.
00:17:37Salvatrice
And I think now just being in this space foras long as I have, entrepreneurship has always been its own bucket.We've categorized it as its own thing, where we should be saying isthat it's threaded throughout, it's not its own thing. And everyindustry has its element of entrepreneurship. And so, let's amplifythat.
00:17:59Larry
That's how I think. But that brings up issuesaround the digital divide. And so, LAEDC's doing a lot of workthere because we can go, it's great, there's all these new digitalopportunities, but some of our citizens don't have the tools.
00:18:16Larry
And just recently, we were dealing with aninitiative here in LA county, and there was an idea of gettingcomputers for some of our underserved communities. And I'm so proudof our team for going, "Well, that's great, but there's no Wi-Fiattached with that computer." So, how do we continue to pushourselves to think about whole systems.
00:18:37Larry
But really want to circle back and underlinethat entrepreneurship component, because I agree with you. I dofeel like sometimes it's seen as its own system, but we can't beshortsighted and think about it like that because the U.S.economy's changing and it continues to change. And we're working onoccupations that didn't even exist when we were growing up.
00:18:59Larry
That's great, that economic growth, really,again, I believe all of our goals around shared prosperity, theydepend on people having those opportunities. And sometimes, they'rein entrepreneurship, sometimes they're in apprenticeships,sometimes they're in full-time careers. So, how do we think aboutthat continuum to success?
00:19:18Salvatrice
Speaking of shared prosperity, you got methinking about shared prosperity and opportunities. Like thosephrases together are really, really strong and impactful and have alot of meaning to them. And I think about our issue of homelessnessin LA. And just in our state, but specifically in LA because we'retalking about it and the access to job opportunities for them andother wraparound services.
00:19:44Salvatrice
From your experience and what you've seen,where do we need to kind of spend our time in ensuring thateconomic and workforce development agencies like ourselves are asolution provider for that community so that we are living true tothese shared prosperity?
00:20:02Larry
That's a really tough question. There arecommunities that have had some success though. Why don't we juststipulate that I'm optimistic, it's a heartbreaking story. Butthere are communities like Salt Lake City and Houston, Texas. Manyhave seen the LA Times article kind of comparing LA and Houston'scontinuum.
00:20:23Larry
And Houston's done an amazing job and reallymoving homeless into permanent supportive housing. So, that'sgreat, and those are elected level decisions. In our own worlds ofeconomic and workforce development, here's how I think about it,which is truly, we're talking about housing affordability.
00:20:41Larry
And so, how do we in economic and workforcedevelopment, impact housing affordability? Well, housingaffordability is two issues that are distinct and joint.
00:20:52Larry
It's the price of housing but it's alsoincomes. And so, do we in the economic and workforce developmentworlds - this goes back to everything we've been talking about,which is we've really got to work to break down our own internaland external silos so we can achieve the collaboration that candrive true income growth and shared prosperity for ourcitizens.
00:21:15Larry
So, that to me, is where we can have an impacton reducing homelessness in our community. You know, it'd be crazyto say we don't have a rule in it because we absolutely do. Andwe're on the side of working on driving income growth for ourcommunities and that shared prosperity we were just talkingabout.
00:21:33Salvatrice
Right. And I do believe that kind of goingback to what we discussed earlier, that that alignment is what'sgoing to get us there. The alignment between our agencies, ourhigher ed and other entities that foster economic workforcedevelopment that our practitioners within this space are going tohelp solve that. I don't see that as a one organizationsolution.
00:21:53Larry
100%. And that's a joke if any of my friendsare listening to this because I've noticed Californians say ahundred percent a lot, so that's why ... I'm a little Californian,I'm dropping in there.
00:22:04Larry
Not just alignment and a shared vision, but Ithink the final piece to that, Salvatrice, is a sustained effort.And I think that is an issue that plagues economic and workforcedevelopment groups throughout the U.S. So, I'm certainly notpicking on California or LA, but a lot of times in our field (stopme if you've heard this one before), we get all excited about, oh,I don't know, coding.
00:22:30Larry
So, a lot of resources in our world go intocoding schools and it's kind of the latest, greatest thing. And Ithink we have to work it on really sustained initiatives. Andthat's around, our model LAEDC's model is around traded sectorindustries. And I'm sure our audience is familiar with tradedsector, but really, this is a very simple economics concept.
00:22:52Larry
You have companies that provide goods andservices locally, meaning grocery stores are everywhere. And thenyou have companies that produce goods and services for externalconsumption. And that's Hollywood. So, people from all over theworld purchase digital media, purchase software related toentertainment, and purchase entertainment.
00:23:12Larry
And those dollars come in to Los Angelescounty. So, that's what we refer to as traded sector. And there's along list of traded sector industries. But we do know absolutelyfrom a top-down point of view, that growing trade - and that's notjust imports and exports, but really, growing our industries thatprovide these goods and services anywhere outside of California,that's going to increase that velocity of money for us.
00:23:37Salvatrice
I love that term: "velocity of money." I wroteit down.
00:23:40Larry
Oh, thank you. It's not mine.
00:23:43Salvatrice
Well, I'm going to keep using it too. I loveit, I love it. It's so good.
00:23:48Larry
Yeah. Well, that's what we're trying to do,growing trade with the outside world brings in new dollars, newmoney into our economy that is spent on local goods and services.And the other piece of this that we're trying to do - and all of usare trying to reduce what you might refer to as bad money, and whatis bad money?
00:24:08Larry
Bad money is people dropping out, bad money ispeople moving out of California because they can't afford it, orworse yet, people falling into homelessness. So, economic andworkforce development is a whole system. We are taking ahuman-centered, as well as a top-down approach, which is focused onthe needs of our citizens and taking the approach of focusing ondriving trade and reducing system dropouts. So, that's ourfive-pillar approach and our real simple model.
00:24:37Salvatrice
I love it. Well, now might be a good time toask my favorite question that I ask every guest, and that is, look,this is a future of work podcast, so we're reframing it, we'rereminding ourselves.
00:24:49Salvatrice
If you had to share one thing that you wantour listeners to better understand about this topic and how itimpacts their future, what would that be? It's a big one,right?
00:25:03Larry
Yeah, that's a really big question. Well, Ithink economic and workforce development is a team sport. And Ithink when I think of the future of work, I think all of us areengaged in this work. And I don't think Larry Holt or Steven orLAEDC has any lock-on ideas.
00:25:24Larry
I do think we're focused on what I wouldconsider sustained, proven strategies for growing our economy. ButI want to make this open-source. I want to hear from our listenerson what are the areas of opportunity that you see. And so, wecertainly have our insights and gosh, there's a lot of ways to plugin here with our team.
00:25:45Larry
But I'll circle back to one of the things Ilove about California, which is ideas are so valuable here. So, Iam open to ideas, and I think California's open to ideas. And maybethat's just a way of me kind of explaining my excitement aboutbeing here.
00:26:00Larry
And I mean, we've all kind of been to thoseplaces that are like, oh, we don't have anything to learn fromSeattle or Amsterdam or Salt Lake City for that matter. But I thinkone of California's great advantages is being open to ideas. So, Iwant to open-source this and share anybody that wants to reach outto me, feel free.
00:26:21Salvatrice
Fantastic. Well, it sounds like you and I havesome chitchatting to do further, and do some alignment and strategywork. Right?
00:26:29Larry
I remember at the Christmas party, you and Iwere like going, "Yeah, this needs work."
00:26:34Salvatrice
There's currently a ton of synergy there forsure, for sure.
00:26:36Larry
That's right.
00:26:37Salvatrice
This is what I love about it. There's never adull moment.
00:26:39Larry
Well, there's never a done either.
00:26:41Salvatrice
That's right, that's right. I love that.There's never a done. Well, sadly, our time here has come to sunseta little bit. And I know that this is going to be an evolvingconversation with you and myself and other leaders andprofessionals in this space. And for those who are listening,Larry, and who want to connect with you, what would be the best waythey can connect with you? And we'll be sure to enter those in theshow notes.
00:27:06Larry
Yeah, well, I'm on Twitter @lfholt. I'm onLinkedIn as well. Feel free to email me directly atlarry.holt@laedc.org.
00:27:17Salvatrice
Excellent, excellent. Alright, well thank youso much. It's been a pleasure and we'll chat soon.
00:27:23Larry
Well, this was fun. Thank you for the invite.I had a good time.
00:27:25Salvatrice
You're very, very welcomed.
00:27:26Larry
I love talking about the great things we'reall doing, so thank you.
00:27:30Salvatrice
You're very welcome.
00:27:31Salvatrice
Thank you for listening to the Future of WorkPodcast. Make sure you're subscribed on your favorite listeningplatform so you can easily get new episodes every Tuesday. You canreach out to us by clicking on the website link below in the shownotes to collaborate, partner, or just chat about all things futureof work. We'd love to connect with you.
00:27:53Salvatrice
All of us here at the Future of Work andPasadena City College wish you safety and wellness.
