Transcript- Episode 87: How To Reimagine The Future Workforce of Los Angeles, With Larry Holt VP of Economic & Workforce Development At LAEDC Episode 87
Feb 14, 2023
00:00:00 Larry
You know, I think economic and workforce
development is a team sport. And I think when I think of the future
of work, I think all of us are engaged in this work. And I don't
think Larry Holt or Steven or LAEDC has any lock-on ideas.
00:00:17 Larry
I do think we're focused on what I would
consider sustained, proven strategies for growing our economy. But
I want to make this open-source. I want to hear from our listeners
on what are the areas of opportunity that you see?
00:00:36 Christina
The workforce landscape is rapidly changing,
and educators and their institutions need to keep up. Preparing
students before they enter the workforce to make our communities
and businesses stronger is at the core of getting an education.
00:00:49 Christina
But we need to understand how to change and
adjust so that we can begin to project where things are headed
before we even get there. So, how do we begin to predict the
future?
00:01:01 Salvatrice
Hi, I'm Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of
Economic and Workforce Development at Pasadena City College and
host of this podcast.
00:01:09 Christina
And I'm Christina Barsi, producer and co-host
of this podcast.
00:01:13 Salvatrice
And we are starting the conversation about the
future of work. We'll explore topics like how education can partner
with industry, how to be more equitable, and how to attain one of
our highest goals, more internships and PCC students in the
workforce.
00:01:27 Salvatrice
We at Pasadena City College want to lead the
charge in closing the gap between what our students are learning
and what the demands of the workforce will be once they enter. This
is a conversation that impacts all of us. You, the employers, the
policymakers, the educational institutions, and the community as a
whole.
00:01:47 Christina
We believe change happens when we work
together, and it all starts with having a conversation. I'm
Christina Barsi.
00:01:54 Salvatrice
And I'm Salvatrice Cummo, and this is the
Future of Work.
00:02:00 Salvatrice
Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Future of
Work Podcast. I am your host, Salvatrice Cummo. Today, we'll be
talking about economic and workforce development as subject near
and dear to my heart, of course. And with the most pressing issues
the LA area is facing. In this space, we'll be discussing what
strategies we should be implementing in our own organizations to
better prepare the workforce.
00:02:22 Salvatrice
With that said, we would like to welcome Larry
Holt, Vice President of Economic and Workforce Development at the
Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation. Larry is a
national top 50 economic development executive who has proven his
ability to translate the needs of governments, citizens, and
businesses.
00:02:42 Salvatrice
He is driven to create business and social
impact through creativity, innovation, and strategic relationships
within his new role at the LAEDC. Thank you for joining us today,
Larry. Welcome.
00:02:56 Larry
Good morning, Salvatrice. Thank you so much
for having me this morning.
00:02:59 Salvatrice
You bet. You know, I have so many questions
for you today, and this may be one of a few episodes that we do
because economic and workforce development is so big and fluid and
evolving and ever-changing. So, if it's okay with you, let's just
dive right on in and get started.
00:03:19 Larry
Absolutely.
00:03:21 Salvatrice
Excellent. Excellent. Well, let's just start
with the fact that your background is so impressive, and I wat to
spend some time talking about that. So, if you could tell us a
little bit about your history and why this space of economic and
workforce development continues to be such of interest to you.
00:03:37 Larry
Well, thank you for that and thank you for
allowing me to be on the podcast this morning. And so, in terms of
my background, let's get the couple of obvious things out of the
way. I'm a gay man from Alabama, so that's why you hear a southern
accent. So, I may even get a "y'all" or two in there.
00:03:53 Larry
I began my career in the Southeast and have
gotten to work all over the country really. And so, I've really
gotten to live a lot of my dreams. But I think today, we think in
terms of how our communities are different. But I can tell you that
one thing I've seen from Alabama to Washington state is that people
care about the future of their communities.
00:04:19 Larry
And so, that's why I believe economic and
workforce development is so important to communities all across the
USA. And I feel very fortunate that I've gotten to do work, which
allows me to shape the future for the communities I've had the
privilege of serving in. So, I'm a new Californian.
00:04:40 Salvatrice
Nice. Welcome.
00:04:41 Larry
I know. The weather is so amazing. Like people
get 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 Texas
today, so I couldn't be happier to be here and to get to know
community members across Los Angeles County as we work to shape
what LAEDC's mission is of a reimagined Los Angeles economy.
00:05:11 Salvatrice
That's right. I'd also like to share that you
just started a few months ago here. Brand new, brand new. So, let's
really kind of acknowledge that and honor that, because I met you
at the very, very tail end of last year.
00:05:22 Larry
At the Christmas party.
00:05:23 Salvatrice
At the Christmas party, and we had a blast. We
had a blast, it was a lot of fun. And I was really intrigued by
your background and your vision for economic and workforce
development through the lens of LAEDC.
00:05:35 Salvatrice
So, tell me, how has it been since the last
time 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?
00:05:48 Larry
Wow, yeah. So, how do you boil the ocean?
00:05:51 Salvatrice
That's a good analogy.
00:05:54 Larry
Things have progressed nicely, I would share.
So, some of the work I've been doing in the initial stages here is
really focusing on LAEDC's strategic plan developed with many, many
members of our community and many great professionals in the
workforce and economic development fields already working here.
00:06:14 Larry
And we're about midway on that plan. So, I
think maybe it would be helpful if I shared some high-level
thoughts about where we're going, which is LAEDC has a
human-centered economic development approach.
00:06:29 Larry
And so, what I mean by that is, if you think
about how economic and workforce development systems tend to
operate in most of the country, it's around they're kind of overly
business-focused, I might say. And let's just focus on growth as
opposed to why don't we focus on the whole system?
00:06:49 Larry
Why don't we really start as a premise that
what's going to drive meaningful pathways for our citizens, for our
small businesses, for our underserved and stressed communities?
Realizing that economic growth is a great driver for some of those
DEI goals that we want to see happen in our community.
00:07:08 Larry
So, in terms of what I've been able to unpack
so far, and as a check-in from our last meeting, that's kind of the
work I've been doing and seeing what our progress looks like and
where we're going. And just to elaborate a little bit.
00:07:23 Larry
I talked about kind of the problems in other
communities, and we have problems too. So, when I think about LA
county, I was looking at job growth numbers, justa real simple
metric. And LA has been hit really hard by the pandemic and out of
190 communities, we are about 141st first in being back to 2019 job
numbers. So, C-, maybe D+.
00:07:49 Larry
So, there's a lot of work to do, but I'm
encouraged incredibly by the great support I see across our work
fellows and economic development partnerships and partners.
00:08:02 Salvatrice
Nice. Using the human-centered, is that what
you called it? Human-centered approach to economic and workforce
development?
00:08:08 Larry
That's right.
00:08:09 Salvatrice
That's right. I got that right.
00:08:11 Larry
I love that concept.
00:08:12 Salvatrice
Using that framework, in again, the short time
that you've been here, you spoke briefly about the job gap and the
need for revitalizing and bringing our deployment back to the
numbers that it was back in 2019. Is there, I should say, one issue
that stands out to you loud and clear using that human-centered
approach to economic and workforce development?
00:08:35 Larry
I think the one issue that really stands out
to me, and it's neither positive nor negative, but just mostly an
observation, is we've got a lot of systems, but are we as leaders
really being intentional and doing the work it takes to achieve
that alignment?
00:08:52 Larry
And I think there is a lot of collaboration
that takes place within LA county, but again, a data point is LA
has the highest poverty rate in the state of California. So, we've
got to take that seriously and really redouble our efforts to
ensure the greatest possible alignment to deliver on those
sustainable, equitable goals that I know are key to what our
organization is trying to accomplish and many of our other partners
as well. So, we can't afford silos.
00:09:22 Salvatrice
We can't. Absolutely not.
00:09:24 Larry
That's an area that I'm particularly
passionate about is that sort of intentionality. And at the
beginning, you referenced an ability to translate. And I think it's
incumbent on all of us to try and be translation pros. Because
translation to me, is a key hallmark of leadership, and that's how
we bring people into the conversation. So , we're all guilty of
jargon.
00:09:46 Salvatrice
That's right.
00:09:47 Larry
Just because our work is kind of specialized,
but sometimes that language does not serve our communities in terms
of being translated so everybody understands, and can take part and
be visible and be a part of the conversation in a reimagined Los
Angeles.
00:10:01 Salvatrice
And leads me to think about too, is one of the
topics I always like to talk about, and I haven't been really
successful at unpacking, is system alignment. And our systems don't
talk to each other, let alone the jargon that we use to our
communities and the stakeholders at large.
00:10:21 Salvatrice
And we are in a real unique space right now
with emerging leaders like yourself and I, and Steven, and with
Kelly LeBlanco. And like there's a lot of us kind of in this space
that are new and emerging leaders, and I think that now is really
the 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 that
process
00:10:48 Larry
Well, because we're trying to achieve scale.
This is a workforce of 5 million people. We can't come up with
boutique programs that only serve even in the most underserved
communities. We need to achieve that skill. And that's going to
take alignment. You did just mention all my favorite people.
00:11:04 Salvatrice
I know they're all my favorite people too.
00:11:06 Larry
You know, I moved here because of Steven.
00:11:08 Salvatrice
Is that right?
00:11:09 Larry
Yeah, well, I mean, for a lot of reasons. I
did have some family in California, but I love California.
00:11:15 Salvatrice
Where's superior state, Larry.
00:11:18 Larry
I mean, it's pretty awesome but there's a lot
of problems too. But I guess I'm someone that's embraced challenges
in my career. I've worked in Oregon and Washington and now,
California, so I've worked up and down the west coast, and believe
I do have some insights into where our challenges are and where our
opportunities are.
00:11:38 Larry
So, I'm excited to be here. I'm excited by
Steven's vision. I may be kind of inferring some of what your
question was on let's continue to unpack how do we ... so we know
we can't silo, we know we need to build systems that scale, how do
we do that?
00:11:54 Larry
And so, that's where I think Steven's vision
of a five pillars approach is so valuable. And let me kind of share
about that.
00:12:04 Larry
Where LAEDC is going is breaking down our own
silos. So, we want to eat our own dog food here. And so, we want
our internal systems of our Institute for Applied Economics, which
is our research team, our business assistance team, our workforce
development team, our foreign direct investment, and attraction
piece. And finally, to feed into our cluster development piece.
00:12:28 Larry
So, I've kind of outlined the five key tactics
we'll utilize to break down those systems, but let me tell you why
I'm excited about it, and you know why I think it's scalable.
00:12:37 Larry
So, there's work happening along the economic
and workforce development continuum within all of those individual
pillars. Where our opportunity is all of those act as inputs for
gaining market intelligence. So, our workforce development systems
can be interacting with our friends in the LA research
consortium.
00:12:57 Larry
Our business assistance team can be gathering
market intel from our supply chain, from our small businesses, from
our historically underutilized businesses. And finally, our cluster
and FDI pieces can be getting real-world and actionable
intelligence from industry.
00:13:14 Larry
And that can all be fed back into our research
we're doing to really refine and bring about research that allows
us to continue the work of building scalable programs that center
our communities at the heart of that. So, I mean, that's really
exciting to me.
00:13:30 Larry
And I'll kind of pick on my industry a little
bit. You know, what I love about it as well is it's a sustainable
proven model. And too often in our field - I know workforce
development doesn't chase fads, but economic development can get
excited by the new shiny object.
00:13:50 Larry
But we have decades and decades of experience
showing that a cluster-based approach is really how you build up a
workforce, supply chains, and an industry where you begin to have
place-based advantages. And place-based advantages is a really key
important concept for all of us in economic and workforce
development.
00:14:12 Salvatrice
Now, for those who don't understand, what does
that mean?
00:14:14 Larry
So, as we think about occupations and pathways
and careers and investment attraction opportunities, one of the
things we really at LAEDC want to have a keen eye on is where do we
have advantages?
00:14:29 Larry
And let me use an example of not just where do
we have advantages, but where are the industries that offer
meaningful pathways for our citizens and have extensive supply
chains, so that can have additional money velocity throughout our
economy for the small business community as well.
00:14:48 Larry
This is in an essence, how economies work and
how we can shape our future here in Los Angeles. So, when I think
about place-based advantages, I mean some of the obvious ones where
we do have place-based advantages are media, digital media,
creativity, that continuum.
00:15:04 Larry
So, clearly, Los Angeles has seen a lot of
money velocity out of our historic hub as the entertainment center
of the world. There's other industries like aerospace with deep,
deep supply chains and that offer amazing career pathways to our
citizens.
00:15:22 Larry
And finally, an emerging industry that we
think a lot about is the biotech industry where I believe the
numbers like around 60% of the jobs don't require a bachelor's
degree. The great thing there is with biotech is that's
university-driven as well. So, how do we loop in our higher ed
partners to really create an ecosystem? I can give you a negative
example too.
00:15:43 Salvatrice
Okay. Yeah, please do.
00:15:45 Larry
So, just to illuminate this and unpack it a
little more, there's a lot of financial services in Los Angeles.
Financial services is an industry with good-paying jobs, but what
are LA's advantages for the financial services industry? Or put
more directly, what does LA have to offer that Phoenix doesn't?
00:16:05 Larry
So, that's just me being real. And so,
perhaps, that negative example really illuminates what we're
looking for when we think about where do we have inherent
place-based advantages.
00:16:16 Larry
So, to drill that down even further, you look
at biotech and you look at all the NIH dollars coming into UCLA
that continue to drive the research ecosystem. Again, higher ed
with aerospace and Caltech and the NASA Jet Propulsion laboratory,
nobody else has that. And then Hollywood, maybe we take it for
granted.
00:16:36 Larry
I don't know, I still get excited seeing the
Hollywood sign. You know, that Hollywood sign offers a lot of
opportunity, I think for creatives and entrepreneurship too. I
mean, in our world of economic and workforce development we tend to
think a lot in terms of careers, and maybe a more nine to five
oriented approach.
00:16:55 Larry
But in media, a lot of those jobs work for
people that with the requisite skills, really desire flexibility in
their careers and can contract for digital designers and digital
entertainers of the world. So, one of the things that's interesting
to me is that flexibility, because we know we have a lot of working
parents out there.
00:17:16 Larry
And so, how do we think broadly about what our
customers are? So, again, I'm probably talking too long, but I get
really excited about this.
00:17:25 Salvatrice
For sure, for sure. And I'd like to really
kind of underscore what you just said about entrepreneurship, and
if there's one thing that this pandemic taught us is the
flexibility and is the ability to just transform.
00:17:37 Salvatrice
And I think now just being in this space for
as long as I have, entrepreneurship has always been its own bucket.
We've categorized it as its own thing, where we should be saying is
that it's threaded throughout, it's not its own thing. And every
industry has its element of entrepreneurship. And so, let's amplify
that.
00:17:59 Larry
That's how I think. But that brings up issues
around the digital divide. And so, LAEDC's doing a lot of work
there because we can go, it's great, there's all these new digital
opportunities, but some of our citizens don't have the tools.
00:18:16 Larry
And just recently, we were dealing with an
initiative here in LA county, and there was an idea of getting
computers for some of our underserved communities. And I'm so proud
of our team for going, "Well, that's great, but there's no Wi-Fi
attached with that computer." So, how do we continue to push
ourselves to think about whole systems.
00:18:37 Larry
But really want to circle back and underline
that entrepreneurship component, because I agree with you. I do
feel like sometimes it's seen as its own system, but we can't be
shortsighted and think about it like that because the U.S.
economy's changing and it continues to change. And we're working on
occupations that didn't even exist when we were growing up.
00:18:59 Larry
That's great, that economic growth, really,
again, I believe all of our goals around shared prosperity, they
depend on people having those opportunities. And sometimes, they're
in entrepreneurship, sometimes they're in apprenticeships,
sometimes they're in full-time careers. So, how do we think about
that continuum to success?
00:19:18 Salvatrice
Speaking of shared prosperity, you got me
thinking about shared prosperity and opportunities. Like those
phrases together are really, really strong and impactful and have a
lot of meaning to them. And I think about our issue of homelessness
in LA. And just in our state, but specifically in LA because we're
talking about it and the access to job opportunities for them and
other wraparound services.
00:19:44 Salvatrice
From your experience and what you've seen,
where do we need to kind of spend our time in ensuring that
economic and workforce development agencies like ourselves are a
solution provider for that community so that we are living true to
these shared prosperity?
00:20:02 Larry
That's a really tough question. There are
communities that have had some success though. Why don't we just
stipulate that I'm optimistic, it's a heartbreaking story. But
there are communities like Salt Lake City and Houston, Texas. Many
have seen the LA Times article kind of comparing LA and Houston's
continuum.
00:20:23 Larry
And Houston's done an amazing job and really
moving homeless into permanent supportive housing. So, that's
great, and those are elected level decisions. In our own worlds of
economic and workforce development, here's how I think about it,
which is truly, we're talking about housing affordability.
00:20:41 Larry
And so, how do we in economic and workforce
development, impact housing affordability? Well, housing
affordability is two issues that are distinct and joint.
00:20:52 Larry
It's the price of housing but it's also
incomes. And so, do we in the economic and workforce development
worlds - this goes back to everything we've been talking about,
which is we've really got to work to break down our own internal
and external silos so we can achieve the collaboration that can
drive true income growth and shared prosperity for our
citizens.
00:21:15 Larry
So, that to me, is where we can have an impact
on reducing homelessness in our community. You know, it'd be crazy
to say we don't have a rule in it because we absolutely do. And
we're on the side of working on driving income growth for our
communities and that shared prosperity we were just talking
about.
00:21:33 Salvatrice
Right. And I do believe that kind of going
back to what we discussed earlier, that that alignment is what's
going to get us there. The alignment between our agencies, our
higher ed and other entities that foster economic workforce
development that our practitioners within this space are going to
help solve that. I don't see that as a one organization
solution.
00:21:53 Larry
100%. And that's a joke if any of my friends
are listening to this because I've noticed Californians say a
hundred percent a lot, so that's why ... I'm a little Californian,
I'm dropping in there.
00:22:04 Larry
Not just alignment and a shared vision, but I
think the final piece to that, Salvatrice, is a sustained effort.
And I think that is an issue that plagues economic and workforce
development groups throughout the U.S. So, I'm certainly not
picking on California or LA, but a lot of times in our field (stop
me if you've heard this one before), we get all excited about, oh,
I don't know, coding.
00:22:30 Larry
So, a lot of resources in our world go into
coding schools and it's kind of the latest, greatest thing. And I
think we have to work it on really sustained initiatives. And
that's around, our model LAEDC's model is around traded sector
industries. And I'm sure our audience is familiar with traded
sector, but really, this is a very simple economics concept.
00:22:52 Larry
You have companies that provide goods and
services locally, meaning grocery stores are everywhere. And then
you have companies that produce goods and services for external
consumption. And that's Hollywood. So, people from all over the
world purchase digital media, purchase software related to
entertainment, and purchase entertainment.
00:23:12 Larry
And those dollars come in to Los Angeles
county. So, that's what we refer to as traded sector. And there's a
long list of traded sector industries. But we do know absolutely
from a top-down point of view, that growing trade - and that's not
just imports and exports, but really, growing our industries that
provide these goods and services anywhere outside of California,
that's going to increase that velocity of money for us.
00:23:37 Salvatrice
I love that term: "velocity of money." I wrote
it down.
00:23:40 Larry
Oh, thank you. It's not mine.
00:23:43 Salvatrice
Well, I'm going to keep using it too. I love
it, I love it. It's so good.
00:23:48 Larry
Yeah. Well, that's what we're trying to do,
growing trade with the outside world brings in new dollars, new
money 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 us
are trying to reduce what you might refer to as bad money, and what
is bad money?
00:24:08 Larry
Bad money is people dropping out, bad money is
people moving out of California because they can't afford it, or
worse yet, people falling into homelessness. So, economic and
workforce development is a whole system. We are taking a
human-centered, as well as a top-down approach, which is focused on
the needs of our citizens and taking the approach of focusing on
driving trade and reducing system dropouts. So, that's our
five-pillar approach and our real simple model.
00:24:37 Salvatrice
I love it. Well, now might be a good time to
ask 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're
reminding ourselves.
00:24:49 Salvatrice
If you had to share one thing that you want
our listeners to better understand about this topic and how it
impacts their future, what would that be? It's a big one,
right?
00:25:03 Larry
Yeah, that's a really big question. Well, I
think economic and workforce development is a team sport. And I
think when I think of the future of work, I think all of us are
engaged in this work. And I don't think Larry Holt or Steven or
LAEDC has any lock-on ideas.
00:25:24 Larry
I do think we're focused on what I would
consider sustained, proven strategies for growing our economy. But
I want to make this open-source. I want to hear from our listeners
on what are the areas of opportunity that you see. And so, we
certainly have our insights and gosh, there's a lot of ways to plug
in here with our team.
00:25:45 Larry
But I'll circle back to one of the things I
love about California, which is ideas are so valuable here. So, I
am open to ideas, and I think California's open to ideas. And maybe
that's just a way of me kind of explaining my excitement about
being here.
00:26:00 Larry
And I mean, we've all kind of been to those
places that are like, oh, we don't have anything to learn from
Seattle or Amsterdam or Salt Lake City for that matter. But I think
one of California's great advantages is being open to ideas. So, I
want to open-source this and share anybody that wants to reach out
to me, feel free.
00:26:21 Salvatrice
Fantastic. Well, it sounds like you and I have
some chitchatting to do further, and do some alignment and strategy
work. Right?
00:26:29 Larry
I remember at the Christmas party, you and I
were like going, "Yeah, this needs work."
00:26:34 Salvatrice
There's currently a ton of synergy there for
sure, for sure.
00:26:36 Larry
That's right.
00:26:37 Salvatrice
This is what I love about it. There's never a
dull moment.
00:26:39 Larry
Well, there's never a done either.
00:26:41 Salvatrice
That's right, that's right. I love that.
There's never a done. Well, sadly, our time here has come to sunset
a little bit. And I know that this is going to be an evolving
conversation with you and myself and other leaders and
professionals in this space. And for those who are listening,
Larry, and who want to connect with you, what would be the best way
they can connect with you? And we'll be sure to enter those in the
show notes.
00:27:06 Larry
Yeah, well, I'm on Twitter @lfholt. I'm on
LinkedIn as well. Feel free to email me directly at
larry.holt@laedc.org.
00:27:17 Salvatrice
Excellent, excellent. Alright, well thank you
so much. It's been a pleasure and we'll chat soon.
00:27:23 Larry
Well, this was fun. Thank you for the invite.
I had a good time.
00:27:25 Salvatrice
You're very, very welcomed.
00:27:26 Larry
I love talking about the great things we're
all doing, so thank you.
00:27:30 Salvatrice
You're very welcome.
00:27:31 Salvatrice
Thank you for listening to the Future of Work
Podcast. Make sure you're subscribed on your favorite listening
platform so you can easily get new episodes every Tuesday. You can
reach out to us by clicking on the website link below in the show
notes to collaborate, partner, or just chat about all things future
of work. We'd love to connect with you.
00:27:53 Salvatrice
All of us here at the Future of Work and
Pasadena City College wish you safety and wellness.