July 29, 2022 | Issue 13

As of July 25th, 2022, The Governor's Office of Workforce Innovation (GOWINN) welcomed Lisa Levine as the new Executive Director. Director Levine brings more than a decade of leadership in business, government, and public affairs as a small business owner, gaming technology manufacturing professional, and a congressional aide. Her relationships across Nevada, from her work in higher education while on the NSHE Board of Regents and UNLV Alumni Association, and in the business community serving on the Las Vegas Chamber’s Government Affairs Committee and Regional Air Service Corporation, will further strengthen collaborative partnerships in workforce development.

Director Levine is a Nevada Equal Rights Commission member and Chair of the Women’s Research Institute of Nevada. She was previously appointed to the Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents, the Nevada Legislative Statutory Committee on Industrial Programs representing manufacturing, and Clark County’s Animal Advisory Board.

Nevada's students want to hear from Nevada professionals across all industries and sectors! Set up a session to speak to classrooms virtually in Fall 2022!

Presentations on any topic are welcome, and supported fall events include:

• Teach Nevada (September)
• Manufacturing Month (October)
• Nevada STEM (November)

Sessions scheduled before the end of July will be promoted to Nevada educators during professional development weeks in August and will be used as examples during platform training. 

With your help, 5,363 students across 226 classrooms have already been engaged! The 7,941 Nevada educators who signed up engaged their classrooms in 70 live sessions and viewed 758 videos!

Contact Amy Fleming at afleming@gov.nv.gov for more information.

Governor Steve Sisolak officially launched the Nevada Child Care Fund to expand access and affordability of quality child care across the state.

“Nevada’s working families need support. This funding will help these families increase their household income, stay in their homes, support their families and save for the future,” said Governor Sisolak. “Quality, affordable child care is critical for the success of our kids, our families and will support our local businesses and economy by creating a more stable workforce.” 

Nevada has recovered all of the jobs lost during the COVID-19 pandemic and has reached a new all-time high of 1,452,600 jobs – 3,000 more jobs than the previous peak from February 2020, Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak and the Nevada Department of Employment Training and Rehabilitation announced last week.

The June 2022 economic report for Nevada shows that over the month, Nevada added 7,600 jobs and employment is up 90,400 since June 2021, an annual increase of 6.6%. The state’s unemployment rate in June is 4.7 percent, decreased by 0.2 points from 4.9 percent in May, and decreased by 2.5 percentage points when compared to June 2021.

Bringing a wealth of experience in forging strategic alliances that have helped businesses pursue opportunities in both existing and emerging markets during his time as President of the Urban Chamber of Commerce in Las Vegas, Ken Evans starts his second term on the Governor’s Workforce Development Board as Vice Chair.

A 1985 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, Ken developed his management and leadership skills over a distinguished 35-year career that culminated in being recognized as the 2010 Air Force Civil Engineering Officer Manager of the Year after serving as a Squadron Commander in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Since moving to Nevada 33 years ago, Ken’s experience in the business world and serving on southern Nevada’s local workforce development board have given him a unique perspective on what improvements need to be made to the workforce development system, so it better serves employers and job seekers. 

 “As someone from a community and socioeconomic background that has historically experienced challenges gaining employment, I think it is important for individuals within the workforce development ecosystem to periodically evaluate the system to determine if it is both professionally and culturally competent in terms of how it markets and delivers its services. For example, we need to examine why certain demographics have disproportionate unemployment rates to determine if there are cultural and/or language barriers that impede the marketing and delivery of our services,” he said. 

In his new position as Vice Chair, Ken will support Chairman Hugh Anderson by overseeing the work of the board’s three subcommittees (Continuous Improvement, Strategic Planning, and Barriers and Underserved Populations) that will contribute to the improvement of the state’s workforce development ecosystem. 

 In addition to figuring out ways the system can best assist individuals who want to re-enter the workforce and addressing employers’ concerns about the persistent vacancies in several high-demand sectors, Ken is particularly focused on ensuring segments of the population that have historically encountered challenges securing employment are specially served. 

“It is imperative that everyone is afforded the opportunity to benefit from the emerging sectors and industries as Nevada continues to diversify into a more resilient economy.”

In the first month of outreach which began on June 18, the SANDI campaign has driven more than 4,000 individuals to seek more information about available resources. Notably, Google SEM has achieved a 10.46% click-through rate, significantly more than the industry average of 2%. On Facebook and YouTube, Spanish ads have seen a higher click-through rate than English ads.

Because women have the most ground to gain after the more significant impact of the recent recession (read more), we've also been thrilled to see that most of the clicks on the technology ad have been from female users, demonstrating the impact of diverse representation.

Round 2 of Sector Council Meetings have featured representatives from the Nevada Governor’s Office of New Americans, the Nevada Department of Corrections, and the Nevada Department of Veterans Services to share details about their programs and discuss opportunities to work with the populations they serve.

The final meeting of this round will focus on the Health Care sector and will be held at 2:00 on Monday, August 8, 2022. All are encouraged to participate.

Amy Fleming, GOWINN's Program Development Engagement Specialist, presented at two educatior conferences this month. First was the Nevada Association of Career and Technical Educators (NACTE) in South Lake Tahoe where she shared information about the Nevada Industry Recognized Credentials List and the work being done to update that resource.

The second presentation was made for nearly 500 attendees of the Nevada Association of School Administrators (NASA) Virtual Summer Conference. There, Amy co-presented with the training team from Nepris for Nevada, diving into the many resources and use cases for this widely available tool.