Bridgett Walters

I have been in workforce development for almost 15 years, though I came to this field by chance after spending 16 years in retail management. My supervisor at Thornton Township knew I was born and raised in the south suburbs of Chicago and that I knew a lot of business professionals and business owners, so he created a new position for me as Job Search and Workforce Coordinator. In that role, I managed about 400 clients in our general assistance program, talking to local businesses to understand their hiring needs and matching our clients with those opportunities. I partnered with a local community college to provide trade certifications including food and sanitation, CPR, CDL, and forklift training, as well as GED programs for clients ranging from ages 18 to 62. Many of my clients worked in internship-style placements where they got paid and kept their pay, and a lot of them became full-time employees. During the 2020 shutdown, I was one of the few who still went into the office every day, continuing my regular work while also doing administrative work for our food pantry, organizing volunteers, coordinating drive-through operations, and scheduling donations from companies like Girl Scouts, Pepsi, Frito-Lay, and meat companies. Now I work for CETA, the Community Economic Development Association, which has been around for 60 years. In my special projects department, I teach employability skills to youth participants. I partner with my own high school where I graduated, going into a classroom every Friday with about 20 seniors to teach them that adulting is very much real life and how things need to go when you enter the workforce. I recently helped plan an event called the Game of Life with about 14 real-life vendors where 40 participants had to manage budgets and deal with life's unexpected events. I also coordinated a 6-week certified phlebotomist program for 15 participants in their 20s, and they all passed their state exam and became certified. It's very rewarding to see my participants succeed, and my last day with the high school seniors was bittersweet because we were all crying, but it's great to see them looking beyond graduation and making decisions about their future.