By Laura Aka for WorkingNation.
Broadcast version by Isobel Charle for Washington News Service reporting for the WorkingNation-Public News Service Collaboration
As with many cities and towns, if an economy doesn't change with the times, opportunities for work and personal growth can stagnate. Change is crucial.
Historically, the industries of Spokane, Washington were natural resources-related, including mining and timber. "It's modified over the years to a place where health care, health sciences, and education are really a big part of what we have in the city," says Mayor Lisa Brown.
"We have a very diversified economy," adding that what she calls 'emerging sectors' - aerospace, tech, and clean energy - are also fueling expansion.
Located in eastern Washington, Spokane has a population of 230,000. About 81% of Spokane's population identifies as white alone, 7.8% as Hispanic or Latino, 2.9% as Asian alone, 2.7% as Black alone, and 1.3% as American Indian and Alaska Native alone, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Brown says the area is dominated by the baby boomer generation, but the evolving economy is making Spokane more appealing to a younger population. She says goals for expanding housing, being mindful around land use, and ensuring a good transit system means, "We can be a more attractive, affordable place for young people."
Brown assumed her mayoral role in 2024, for a term that runs through 2027. Among her previous roles, she was chancellor of Washington State University Spokane, a state legislator, and director of the Washington State Department of Commerce.
She is using her past experiences in education, government, and business development to pull together a coalition of community thought leaders who are connecting local residents to career opportunities with the goal of building a strong economy.
An even bigger goal is putting residents on the pathway to economic mobility and prosperity.
Exploring Careers at a Young Age
"I describe us as 'infrastructure builders.' We think about the types of things, the conditions that need to be created for us all to be successful 10 years from now, for the economy to grow, and for us all to prosper," says Erin Vincent, VP of education and talent at Greater Spokane Inc. (GSI) - the region's business development organization.
GSI notes, "We can't do this work alone. We partner with local businesses, our community, nonprofits, and the surrounding region to build a robust regional economy."
Vincent says, "In my area of workforce development, that means working on childcare. It means working on career-connected learning, thinking about how we can create the conditions for students to think about whatever their best future might be from that postsecondary perspective. It means supporting K-12 education."
She says young students are getting a glimpse at the idea of careers in a variety of ways, including through career fairs, members of industry visiting schools, and education-focused programming on a local television outlet.
"Whether it's trades, apprenticeships, two-year, four-year, any of those options are great options. They are right for a lot of kids," says Vincent. "The real key is that idea of creating an atmosphere of valuing whatever best suits a student."
Experiential Learning Introduces Students to Potential Careers
A GSI initiative - Business AfterSchool - gives local students in grades 6-12 the chance to "gain real-life skills and experiential learning in a workplace setting."
Vincent says, "In terms of a mindset perspective, there's probably no better way to actually get a kid to start seeing themselves as X, Y, Z than to actually get them there." She says about 12 host businesses participate in Business AfterSchool during the academic year.
Vincent says one such business is Wagstaff, Inc., a longstanding partner that brings students in-house to observe various jobs on the manufacturing floor.
The manufacturing workforce pipeline needs a boost, according to Wade Larson, Wagstaff's director of workforce development.
"We did a study for Department of Commerce in the state about three years ago on the workforce for advanced manufacturing and aerospace. Bottom line - we don't have the numbers."
He says bringing students to Wagstaff for Business AfterSchool is a valuable in-person experience, "'I need you to come see us. Do cool stuff.' The idea is to capture some of these kids when they come out of high school."
A more in-depth Wagstaff experience is the Production & Manufacturing Institute (PMI) - a three-week summer immersion program for incoming high school juniors and seniors.
"The students work as product teams to design, manufacture, and sell actual products for customers," explains Larson. "In the meantime, we'll teach 'em a little bit of welding, a little bit of machining, take 'em out to live sites. And through this whole thing, they get to make money. They get to make stuff. They have a full experience."
He says a lot of effort is made collecting feedback from the students and teacher participants - what they like and don't like, how the experience can be enhanced.
Helping Local Schools Shape Curriculum
Larson notes challenges faced by educators - not being able to always teach what's needed by industry. "We're not telling the schools what we need. The schools are doing their best to figure it out themselves, but we in business need to step up, take the lead, throw money at it, and step into the classroom to say, 'Here we are. Let us help.'"
The Spokane Public Schools - which offers CTE (career and technical education) programming - states, " With rising tuition costs, many high school graduates are looking toward trade apprenticeship programs as satisfying alternative career paths."
Courses are available for both middle and high school students. The district says, "Middle school CTE courses are exploratory, covering STEM, video production, and publishing.
"In high school, all courses are categorized into one of the 16 nationally recognized Career Clusters, which group jobs and industries by related skills or products/services. Courses typically progress from exploratory to preparatory stages, offering opportunities such as dual credit (college credit), industry certifications, internships, or apprenticeships."
Opportunities for Advanced Manufacturing
Aerospace and tech are among the sector shifts in Spokane mentioned by Brown. The region's American Aerospace Materials Manufacturing Center (AAMMC) is expected to be "critical to advancing U.S. economic and national security by onshoring and upscaling manufacturing technologies that support our domestic aircraft supply chain."
Brown says, "We have been awarded a significant stream of funding - upwards of $40 million. I will say that this is something that has broad sector support. We've got bipartisan senators supportive of this. So, we're cautiously hopeful that our funds are secure and that we really can make these key investments to build out the vision."
The AAMMC already has a designated location at a former Triumph aerospace facility, notes Brown. "This is not just a concept on a piece of paper. There's a facility. There is a set of workforce certificates being developed at the higher ed level and the set of collaborations around how to potentially engage in a scale-up of some manufacturing."
She says, additionally, the facility will require advanced-level research and a test bed for next-generation materials to see if they're appropriate for the aerospace sector.
"This Tech Hub really brought stakeholders across the workforce system together because the capacity is there. We need everybody.
"We need the colleges, we need the K-12 system, we need the Workforce Councils, and the other training partners," says Shana Peschek, executive director of the Machinists Institute - the nonprofit arm of IAM District 751 (International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers).
"That's really where we see ourselves, especially around helping people understand what these careers are."
Peschek says about the Tech Hub, "We are leasing a small footprint there. We had a meeting to talk about what exact skills they would want us teaching around those materials - composites and thermal plastics.
"The partnership means that we'll have students in the building where this amazing facility is operating, really being innovative, and a global leader - and the employers and manufacturers have access to individuals from the region that are being skilled-up in that technology."
Aside from the Tech Hub, the Institute has been involved in skills training for a number of years. Established in 2018, the Institute offers a pre-apprenticeship program called Machinists Institute Career Accelerator (MICA), as well as six Registered Apprenticeship pathways including machinist, industrial machinery technician, and fabrication welder.
Peschek notes in addition to aerospace and advanced manufacturing, other industries are under the Machinists' umbrella including maritime, clean energy, and supply chain.
The Institute is currently expanding its own current training and education center in Spokane. Expected to launch in July, Peschek says the offerings will include welding, machining, and heavy equipment/diesel.
Postsecondary Education Collaboration
Collaboration with community colleges has been highly productive, according to Peschek. "Our machinist apprentices can get an associate degree at the same time that they journey out.
"We've been really breaking down barriers because we really want our students to understand that this degree, whether they felt like they needed one or not, it's there in the future - just in case - and helps open advanced pathways for them."
She says Spokane Community College (SCC) has been an important partner.
Brown adds, "We support people moving into the trades through apprenticeships. And now pre-apprenticeships. Through pre-apprenticeships and apprenticeships, we're also trying to create pathways into more specialized training."
In order to help get qualified applicants into an apprenticeship program, SCC offers an apprenticeship prep course - Skilled Trades Preparation (STP), explains Kenna May, the school's manager of apprenticeship.
STP runs for 11 weeks, 24 hours per week. May says in addition to spending three hours per day in the shop, students learn extensively about workplace safety.
She notes, "They also build a tiny house - all the components for that house. They do the blueprints, the framing, the drywall, the roofing. They'll put in doors and windows. They'll run electricity to them. Our goal is to really teach them a little bit about a lot of different trades."
May notes that about 50% of the students that complete STP will move to a Registered Apprenticeship program - compared to the statewide articulation average of about 38%.
Regarding apprenticeship, she says, "It's a combination of on-the-job training and classroom time. The college is the classroom portion of apprenticeship. Less than 10% of actual apprenticeship training is in the classroom.
"The majority of the training is done on the job. Our programs vary in length between two and five years, depending on the craft."
May says the five-year programs include those pathways for electricians, sheet metal workers, plumbers, and steam fitters. Laborers and bricklayers are shorter programs.
She notes SCC's Apprenticeship and Journeyman Training Center is made available for use by several other programs that do not have their own training facilities - at no cost. Overall, SCC partners with 19 different programs representing about 27 trades, according to May.
When someone expresses interest in a particular pathway, May says, that person is referred to the specific program to apply. The program - not SCC - leads the process. "You do testing in their interview process, then once they accept you in their program - they'll get you a job and put you out to work. Then they give a schedule to the students for when they're going to be coming in for class," she explains.
May reminds apprenticeship is dependent upon the economy. "Our programs are not going to take apprentices if there's not a job for them. Our programs do look to the future of jobs coming up and try to anticipate how many they're going to need."
Entry into the Trades for People with Barriers to Employment
The Pre-Employment Preparation Program (PEPP) is a hands-on pre-apprenticeship course - that consists of 160 hours over four weeks.
"We work with the building trades and all of our students who graduate with their certifications have a designated benefit of direct entry into the trade that they feel they want to do the most," says Shannon Corrick, PEPP's executive director.
According to PEPP, the program encourages "disenfranchised individuals or those who are working low-wage jobs to apply for the PEPP class.
"We are also working closely with the criminal justice system to assist as many individuals as possible to enroll in PEPP immediately upon reentering the community so that they can be prepared to enter a family-wage apprenticeship position following completion of their PEPP class."
Corrick notes that wraparound services are a key PEPP component. "We can take care of their housing for a month. We can take care of their power bill for a month, their phone bill, their internet bill, their car payment, and then daycare, absolutely 100% daycare.
"We like to say it's not a handout, it's a hand up."
Participants who complete the training earn certifications including OSHA 10, flagging (traffic control), CPR, and forklift qualification credential.
Corrick says trainees have had success transitioning into the trades, "As far as our grants and our North America's Building Trades Unions (NABTU) certification, we are required to have 15% placements. That's our bare minimum. I do know from the September class, we have a 60% placement rate."
Health Care Pathways
Brown says, "We're not known necessarily as a health sciences city, but we have this health sciences cluster."
"One in five people in Spokane County works in health care. It's our largest industry," says Erin William Hueter, executive director of Health Sciences and Services Authority (HSSA) of Spokane County. "Our focus is on biosciences economic development and the promotion of public health. And we do that mostly through grantmaking,"
Williams Hueter says, "So, connection to that research and growing that field is beneficial to the health of the residents of our region. But also, these are well-paying jobs. When we have people that are earning a good income and have a stable base in their economic lives, their health improves because they have access to health care in new ways.
"I think what's important about the development of really innovative technologies, innovative practices in health care, when you're in a community where so many of us work in health care and every single one of us is impacted by the health care delivery system - seeing that job growth, seeing new people being trained in that area, it's just critical to our wellbeing."
As a former chancellor at Washington State University Spokane, Brown says, "When I was at WSU Spokane, we created the state's second public medical school. So now we actually have both the University of Washington and WSU Medical School."
Williams Hueter adds the organization - through its grant awards - is addressing the area's provider shortage, particularly how long it takes to see a primary care doctor. "Contracts have been signed addressing provider shortages. So, we've got organizations that are addressing it through working to train more professionals."
Grant recipients include Asante Health, Joya Child and Family Development Center, Latinos En Spokane, and Maddie's Place .
"What an incredible resource to have two medical schools in our region because - boy, do we need health care providers. Not just in Spokane County, but in the more rural areas that surround Spokane County, as well. Seeing those doctors stay in the area is so important," says Williams Hueter.
Pacific Northwest University - which has an osteopathic medicine program and is based in Yakima - also has a presence in Spokane.
Traci Couture Richmond, executive director of Spokane Teaching Health Center (STHC), explains, "We are training family medicine and internal medicine residents. They've graduated from medical school. They now have come to their residency. And so, in Spokane, we are responsible for developing the next primary care workforce here."
She also addresses the need for these doctors, "What you're seeing is people are being forced into urgent cares, in emergency rooms to take care of issues that they're having - in settings that are not appropriate. That could be prevented by access to primary care."
In addition, Couture Richmond says Psychiatry Residency Spokane - which is affiliated with both the University of Washington and Washington State University - has its outpatient clinic located at STHC.
"Their residents are here embedded with our internal medicine and family medicine residents. They're able to learn from each other."
Couture Richmond says not everyone is comfortable seeing a resident for treatment, "Residency clinics have kind of a quiet stigma - 'I don't want to go there because they're not real doctors.' And they are. They're doctors that are learning. You're also being seen by one of their preceptors who's been a physician for a long period of time."
Upon completion of their residencies, a number of doctors remain in Spokane or rural communities outside of the area, she notes.
"Of our internal medicine program, we're retaining about 55 to 60% of those in the Spokane area. Many in internal medicine, typically they go off to be a hospitalist or then they move into a critical care fellowship.
"Family medicine has been a little bit of a different story for us. We have retained around 20%, but the other large group of them are going out into small rural communities and practicing the medicine that they were trained to do. From birth to death, they're doing all of that care in these small rural communities."
The Emerging Clean Energy Sector
Brown says, "There's really interesting stuff happening in clean energy. I mean, we have this river and waterpower. We've developed solar and wind in eastern Washington, and that has led to now looking at batteries and things like that."
Spokane has a number of environmental initiatives around renewable energy, urban forestry, and stormwater and wastewater, among others. The local Water Department owns and operates the Upriver Hydroelectric Dam on the Spokane River.
"The basic idea is that the climate crisis continues to get worse and institutions like Gonzaga University have a real clear sense of our mission which involves graduating students who are people - for and with others - who want to create a just society and have care for a common home," explains Brian G. Henning, Ph.D., director of the Gonzaga Institute for Climate, Water, and the Environment.
The Gonzaga Climate Institute "engages in regional capacity building, scholarship, and teaching to promote the flourishing of Inland Northwest communities, waters, and lands in the face of a changing climate."
Henning says the school offers a BA in environmental studies, a BS in environmental science, as well as a sustainable business minor in the School of Business. "Those are the programs that are most obviously connected to understanding different aspects of the environment, and we get really amazing students in all of those programs."
Gonzaga offers career resources for students who complete these areas of study for post-university life.
There are hiring opportunities for students while they are still in school, according to Henning. "The Climate Literacy Project was one of our very first projects. We started hiring Gonzaga students who serve as climate literacy fellows.
"They're typically environmental studies or environmental science students, but they could be from any discipline. We train them and they go in pairs into K-8 classrooms, and they deliver hands-on climate science lessons."
He says some of the program's fellows have gone on to pursue environmental education as a career - for example, working for nonprofits in different parts of the country or for the [National] Park Service.
For learners anywhere, Henning says there is the opportunity to earn a professional certificate in climate action planning. He says, "That program is available to community members from around the world who are interested in helping their communities develop plans for how to understand, how to be resilient, and how to reduce their contributions to climate change."
Additionally, the Gonzaga Climate Institute created the Climate Resilience Project in 2022 in "response to the increasing need for extreme heat research and community action." Henning says, "We hire students who are climate project assistants...who work 10 to 15 hours a week. They're doing research, they're doing community engagement, they're helping to coordinate and facilitate the combination of those two."
Due to the threat of wildfire and the resulting smoke, Henning says they are "developing heat and smoke response plans with the City of Spokane."
He also mentions the Cataldo Project - which he describes as "a curriculum and pedagogy workshop that Gonzaga faculty from any discipline can take.
"They come for a two-day workshop to explore how they can incorporate climate and sustainability concepts into their courses, their existing classes - not so much by dislodging content - but by infusing sustainability and climate themes."
'Where is our village for our parents?'
As the conversation between Brown and WorkingNation was wrapping, she made a point to add, "I'm very passionate about pre-K and early learning.
"I think a lot of it starts there. And the community is also coming together collaboratively around that sector and around childcare workers and people who are in early learning They need to be supported in order to get this whole thing off the ground right from the very beginning."
"I really dug my heels into this idea of being a tool of healing and safety for the community, but also to focus on the education of early learners and to ensure that they were kindergarten-ready," says Kerra Bower, owner of Little Scholars Development Center and founder of Raze Development. "We really started building our program to ensure that we closed the education gap as much as we possibly could."
The programming serves children from four months to 12 years.
"The Maasai tribe asks that question, 'How are the children?' The idea is if the children are well and our community is well, then we are thriving," says Bower.
"My question has been, and will always be, 'Where is our village? Where is our village for our parents?' It is incredibly important. In all my programs, across the board, they're built on this idea that the parent is the cornerstone teacher. We are there to support the parent because if the parent is healthy and whole, then we're raising whole healthy humans."
Bower says she first met Brown when she was with the Washington State Department of Commerce. "One of the things I said to her [around childcare] was, 'This is a workforce development issue. This is an economic vitality and upward mobility issue. If you don't have a stable childcare environment and industry, you don't have workforce development or economic vitality.'"
After winning her run for mayor, Brown appointed Bower to her transition team. Bower says, "She could have very well put me into the family engagement and family connection group, which is a very important group.
"But instead, she put me in the workforce and economic development group. I was the only childcare provider, and I would even venture to say the only actual small business in that group. For me, it really pinpointed her understanding."
Bower says in addition to parents and their children, the teachers and caregivers need support, as well. "We have to be able to provide a balance for them, and that comes in the form of the mental and behavioral health supports that are readily available to them in their classrooms.
"These are human beings. These are not childcare whisperers. They're not super humans. They are people who just happen to love little people. It's humanizing the individuals that are in your classrooms."
'Quality of life-focused'
"I want the city to grow and thrive for my son, for my grandson, and for the future," says Brown. "We're the second largest city in Washington State. The region is very quality of life-focused."
An unsuccessful bid for Congress caused a shift in Brown's perspective. "It got me even more connected to the region, to the city. I felt like the change that I wanted to see - if I couldn't help make it happen at the national level - that really here was the right place."
She acknowledges that she is not doing the work alone. "The best part of this job is that really I deeply engaged and networked. I know higher ed leaders. I know business leaders. I know nonprofit leaders, activists, and so that has made it easier for me."
Laura Aka wrote this article for WorkingNation.
Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.
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