TRANSCRIPT - Sustaining the Rebuild: PCC’s Continuing Commitment to Community Recovery Episode 164

Mar 31, 2026

Leslie Thompson  [00:00:00]:
PCC is committed to maintaining its role as a resource hub. Having people having gone through these pathways that are going to be ready to get in there and do the actual work that needs to be done. And it's not just swinging hammers. There's a lot of work to be done in different capacities.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:00:17]:
Hi, I'm Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic and Workforce Development at Pasadena City College and host of this podcast. 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. 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. This is The Future of Work.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:01:06]:
Hi, and welcome back to The Future of Work podcast. I am your host, Dr. Salvatrice Cummo, and today I'm joined by our colleague at Pasadena City College, Director Leslie Thompson, who is our Director of Operations at Economic and Workforce Development. Oftentimes, Leslie and I have an opportunity to come together and just chit-chat about where we are here at PCC. What are we seeing? What are some and challenges moving forward and opportunities moving forward. And I'm very grateful that I get to have a partner in crime to do this work. So Leslie, welcome, welcome to the show.

Leslie Thompson  [00:01:40]:
Thank you. Good to be back. Here we are again.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:01:43]:
Here we are again. The last time we did this conversation, the last time we had a conversation was immediately after the fires here in Altadena. And it's been a year already.

Leslie Thompson  [00:01:57]:
Can you believe that? It's gone by so quickly.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:02:00]:
So, so fast. And so much has been worked on. So much has been accomplished. And I thought it might be a good idea for us to just talk about where we were and where we are now and kind of where we want to go and what are we seeing? What do you think about that?

Leslie Thompson  [00:02:19]:
I think it's a great idea. I think that there's been a lot of activity from the college as an anchor institution in the community. There's been a lot of programmatic work done. There's been a lot a lot of immediate response work done, and I feel like we're geared up to be part of this slow and steady rebuild over the next few years. And so a number of kind of initiatives in the works for that. And also, there's just so much stuff that we've already done. And, and if you recall from our last conversation, we talked a little bit about the immediate impact and PCC's immediate response for the community, opening the campus to be a place for distribution and connection and But so much has happened since then. Things kind of settled back down on campus, but then the campus got to work in programming that is going to sustain the community as it builds, rebuilds itself.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:03:11]:
Yeah, I love how you said that the campus got to work. We did. We, we immediately pulled together instructional programming, small business support, student aid. The Foundation played a really big role in that as well. But I think for me, what was pretty amazing and spectacular is that every area of our division, Division of Economic and Workforce Development, each area was able to respond and has been able to respond and continues to respond to the needs of our community. And it really underscores the need for, for me at least, I'm now, now this is my own bias, but it really underscores the need for a division like Economic economic and workforce development to live in a community college because we're both inward-facing, right? We have internal stakeholders and external stakeholders. Our students are residents, our residents are students, our business owners are our students, their employees are our students. So it's all one, but it— what has been beautiful to watch is how every department has been able to build something, respond to the needs of our community in a very rapid way.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:04:29]:
I mean, I think about the Women's Business Center and the Small Business Development Center. Those two areas have been instrumental in assisting the business community.

Leslie Thompson  [00:04:38]:
Yeah, I like what you said about economic and workforce development because I know we've had this conversation where there's, there's all sorts of initiatives and activities happening. It is what economic and workforce development is. And I'm not talking about the division specifically. I'm talking about the work Yes. This is how a community rebuilds itself, through economic development efforts, through workforce development efforts. This is the worst reason to have to kind of bring that expertise up and be like, this is why it's so important. But it's very timely that the need is so great for the Division of Economic and Workforce Development here at PCC and also for the economic and workforce development ecosystem as a whole to respond in full force. I think it's timely and it's necessary.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:05:21]:
Yeah, I, I couldn't agree with you more. And I would also say another learning moment for me, or something that was underscored, are the existing assets that community colleges have that can easily be deployed. And the first thing I think about was when we came together with our colleagues to pull together the PCC for Dena Page, we said we want to build inventory of what we have for displaced workers, for our employers, for our residents, et cetera. And it was evident to me that we had these things already and it was a matter of repackaging is the only word that comes to mind right now. But it was a way to kind of frame that the need is there and the solutions are here. And it was a matter of us communicating clearly to our community what solutions we had to offer. And so, the other learning moment, so I had 3, the other learning moment, the 3rd learning moment for me was the value that business technical assistance has in a time like this. You know, our Small Business Development Center and our Women's Business Center do this all day, every day.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:06:41]:
I mean, the SBDC has been here for a little over 10 years. Our Women's Business Center just celebrated their 1-year anniversary. And they have been able to quickly activate in a way because they already had the infrastructure in place, much like our extension courses already had the infrastructure in place to respond rapidly. So when I say rapidly, while yes, you know, it's not always as rapid as we want it to be, but it is rapid in our environment. Quickly, those areas pulled together programming and resources. And as of today, as of today, as it relates to business technical assistance, they have been able to support— they being the SBDC and the WBC— have been able to serve over 400 fire-impacted businesses, of which 86% are women-owned small businesses. 86%. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:07:43]:
And I'm gonna drill it down even further. Of that 86%, 36% are Hispanic, Latino-owned. 52% of them have 1 to 4 employees. 50, that's over half.

Leslie Thompson  [00:07:58]:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:07:59]:
And 58 are full-time operators. I mean, I mean, it's like, it's, it's incredible.

Leslie Thompson  [00:08:04]:
Impact. Impact.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:08:05]:
Yeah, for sure. If you recall when we had our conversation with Lizzie, who was our director of the Women's Business Center and Don, our Director of the Small Business Center, they said, Salvatrice, Leslie, of these businesses, there's a large percentage, I don't have that number, but there's a large percentage of them that they were operating in their homes.

Leslie Thompson  [00:08:28]:
At the time of the fires.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:08:29]:
Right.

Leslie Thompson  [00:08:29]:
Yeah.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:08:30]:
So not only did they lose their home, but they also lost their business. So that said, now we're responding to our clients that we have and our students. Again, there are business owners and there are residents and there are students. It's all one.

Leslie Thompson  [00:08:49]:
It's all one, yeah. I think that the idea of responding quickly and having this inventory that we were taking initially, and while yes, PCC had a number of applicable response routes, one of the standouts for me, the surprise for me was PCC Extension really had a lot of relevant courses, right? And that's not for credit, right? Fee-based. And we ended up putting that on the website. And I think that a lot of people that are around that table were surprised. PCC Extension's been doing this for years and years under Elaine Chapman's direction. And it's just there. And so we were able to pull that out. I wasn't surprised because I'm familiar with the catalog, but I know a lot of people around that table, if you recall, were, they were surprised.

Leslie Thompson  [00:09:37]:
And we were very intentional about including PCC Extension in that inventory of resources for the immediate response. So while yes, we had some stuff to put up immediately, the other thing that was cool was the stuff that started to cook from that moment on. We were like, you know what, wait a minute. Okay, we have these things, but we're going to need some other stuff. We're going to need some, you know, some big picture planning, right?

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:09:59]:
Right.

Leslie Thompson  [00:10:00]:
And you might want to share a little bit about that. The Construction Trade Lab, the courses through noncredit to get folks ready for construction jobs. Like a lot of stuff that, that just started this semester. So a lot of stuff is still coming. So yeah, we had a lot of stuff to put up initially, but I think for me what was more exciting than that was the things that started lining up immediately after all the things we started doing, like where we are right now and where we're going. Maybe you can share a little bit about those initiatives?

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:10:30]:
That initial engagement with our colleagues and that brainstorming session that we had did share quite a bit for us. You're right. I mean, it shared what we have and what we don't and where we need to go, which led to our Skills to Rebuild initiative for the college, which we're working on now. It's going to be a continuous process, evolving process. It's never, ever going to go away. Because the world is evolving, the economy evolves around us, and unfortunately, this is not going to be the first and the last time that we experience these kinds of disasters. Therefore, having the infrastructure and the programming and the talent in place to respond is going to be even more so critical in the future. The Skills to Rebuild initiative is, again, a work in progress.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:11:20]:
Our colleagues, right, at noncredit immediately pulled together a construction readiness program, rough carpentry Also in instruction, we have architecture, environmental studies, building inspection. And all of these programs, these Skills to Rebuild programs, all of these programs are going to continue to evolve. We have the Wildland Fire Academy. That's huge. The programming continues to evolve. We're going to see it evolve. And we know that a community college's programming curriculum takes some time. But that's when areas like the noncredit division that is led by Dr.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:11:59]:
Francisco Suarez and our not-for-credit area led by Elaine Chapman, that's when those two entities kind of come in and help support in a very flexible, rapid way that, because they can, while additional programming is being done on the other side of the house in instruction. So all that to say, is that this work is being done. It'll continue to evolve. But what I really, really love and appreciate is the focus and attention on career technical education programs, also known to some of our listeners as vocational programming. All of that never goes away. It's not going to. We're humans. We live, we work, we play, we drive, you know, so, so all of these things that we need all of the professionals that we need, PCC is here to train and develop them, not only for the rebuild efforts, but in general.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:12:59]:
The other area that I think that belongs in the rebuild initiative is, of course, as I mentioned earlier, like our response to the business community. We tend to think of that as two very separate, but they're really not. I mean, these businesses are going to be able to support the talent that we're producing. To hire the talent that we are producing. If you don't mind, I'm just going to share real quick kind of what both centers have been able to do. The WBC partnered with 11:11 Media and GoFundMe to support grants to these businesses. We helped in partnership, the Small Business Development Center in partnership with Wells Fargo, did a grand opening of the Mariposa Junction. It was beautiful.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:13:46]:
It was outstanding. In fact, we'll put links into our show notes about that too. We've been able to do a couple of accelerators. Lizzy pulled together Beyond the Chair Accelerator, which is a 4-week accelerator for beauty professionals focused on marketing, customer service, operational efficiencies, revenue-generating brand strategies, all of these things that are necessary for our business owners who are impacted to rebuild. That culminated in a celebratory mixer with celebrity artists, and it was absolutely beautiful. She also pulled together the Ready LA Procurement Accelerator, and that was an 8-week accelerator in partnership with our SBA partners and others. But the purpose of that accelerator was to support small businesses in navigating federal, state, and local procurement pathways, which are all going to be necessary. During this rebuild process, which you and I both know is going to take—

Leslie Thompson  [00:14:46]:
it's going to take a while.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:14:47]:
It's going to take a while.

Leslie Thompson  [00:14:48]:
She also has a construction accelerator coming up.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:14:51]:
She does. She does. She has a construction accelerator coming up. In fact, as we speak, she is securing applications. So applications are coming in for that.

Leslie Thompson  [00:15:00]:
I believe the application opened Monday on the WBC website, and I think the event is going to be in April, right?

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:15:07]:
Yes, the event is going to be in April, or it concludes in April with a bid day where participants pitch their construction capabilities to prime public agencies and procurement partners. So how amazing is that? So that's a good example of how one area has dual focuses and dual outreach and solutions for our community, building the talent, supporting the entity to support and sustain the talent. Those two things go hand in hand. They're not mutually exclusive. And again, why economic Development divisions are really critical in community colleges to make that connectivity, to make that connection. That was my own selfish plug for EWD because, you know, I'm always going to do it. I love what we do, and I enjoy our team where we have stellar leaders that are doing this work. And one more area, again, connecting student to community to business is PCC we developed our first College Corps program led by Jacqueline Sakoto, right, our director of the Freeman Center.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:16:15]:
And this program supports— it empowers students to be good civic leaders. It's helping them embed them in the community to be great leaders, specifically working with organizations that are tied to rebuild efforts. And so supporting 20 students, They get $10,000 stipend apiece. So again, just another example of where we are right now in connecting student to community, community to business, and vice versa. It's all one. It's, it's for me, we're all one. We just tweak different programming and I'm going to call them products, right? We tweak different products to be able to support the existing needs of those areas.

Leslie Thompson  [00:16:57]:
I'd like to switch gears a little bit. When I think about the existing needs of those areas, there are a number of things that we can do and a number of things that we are doing to support development in the region, in our backyard, as it were, where the fires were. But there are a number of challenges that happen out there that we don't directly involve. The reason this is going to take so long is because there are a number of barriers that exist to prevent people from getting their insurances paid out, getting their permits in a timely manner, all the environmental things that have to happen before you can even start building. Like, there's a process. And the cleanup was one thing. That was, you know, cleaning stuff up and then figuring out where you take that stuff or where you stage it until you can dispose of it. Like, there was a lot of— a lot of things that were happening in the area that have nothing to do with what we can support necessarily, right? Before people are even ready to start rebuilding before people were even ready to get back to work.

Leslie Thompson  [00:17:59]:
I mean, that immediate impact and those days and weeks immediately following the fire, there was a lot of activity going on. But just because the air is cleared and debris is cleared doesn't mean that the roadblocks are cleared, doesn't mean that the barriers are removed or that there's not new barriers or that there's not greater impacts. We lost more than structures. We lost more than businesses and homes. We lost, you know, chunks of a very unique community. That's impactful. And rebuilding has to be done in such a way that it's mindful of preserving what made it unique. But I wanted to talk a little bit about kind of the challenges going forward, not just challenges that the institution may face in terms of delivering, because I feel like we, you alluded to it earlier when you talked about the timeline for bringing courses to market, if we can use that term, there is a process for that.

Leslie Thompson  [00:18:53]:
So new programming does take time. It can take a while for credit courses, especially. But that's not the worst barrier. We work around that stuff all the time, and then that happens and people work through it. But we can have everything ready to go if there's no worksite to start building on, if they're not at that point. You want to talk about some of those challenges? I think we could probably think of 3 big ones right off the top of our heads.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:19:17]:
Yeah, I mean, it's complex. It's complex because— so let's look at rebuild, like actual structural rebuild. Okay. There are variables to that. You mentioned environmental. Yes. There's soil remediations that have still not been completed or started. Right? There are insurance issues.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:19:45]:
We still have our community members who have not received funds to do it. So we're very, very early, early stages of any kind of rebuild. But these are things that— these challenges, for example, if we just took structural rebuild, while we are preparing the talent and the programming, these are variables that we do not have control over. And so we have to be very mindful of that. And to gauge the velocity of those two things and know how quickly they're gonna happen, we don't know. I mean, it's very, it's very difficult to gauge. So every day becomes kind of like a check-in. We have to check in, where are we at? What are we hearing? And then how do we adjust? It's this constant, constant iteration to how we are showing up for our community because the needs continue to change based on these variables that we don't have control over.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:20:40]:
The other variable that we don't have control over is the workforce. Our workforce is under attack, and there are many reasons why that, you know, we don't have the time for to kind of get into now, but we can kind of connect the dots here. But our workforce is under attack. So when that happens and we have companies who are at a shortage already, already these companies started at a deficit. With talent, and now you're adding a tax on our workforce. Now they're even further along in their deficit. And so where do community colleges play? How do we play a role in that? The role that we play is we can continue to develop. We continue to rapidly develop the talent necessary.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:21:25]:
And then, you know, when I think about the business community, kind of the same thing, it's a double-edged sword too, because if their community members are leaving, How are they sustaining their businesses? Well, now they've got to think about— they've got to reimagine their business model. And that's okay. That's completely okay to do. I mean, we, we felt that during the time, you know, of the pandemic where our business community had to adjust and evolve their models to survive. And so we're going to continue to see that as well. But those are just kind of like in the immediate challenges that I'm seeing and hearing. Again, what we can do as a system of community colleges is listen, have iterations to our work, and allow for that agility and flexibility. And it's going to require us to kind of do things outside of the ordinary.

Leslie Thompson  [00:22:15]:
We've advocated for more flexibility for years now in terms of, like, course developing programs or updating programs based on feedback that we get from industry through various formats, you know, just from our, just from our work in the community, kind of informing instruction in that way. Like, you know, this is what we're hearing, this is what they're needing, and then, you know, participating in the advisory committees when we can, you know, all that. That's kind of standard for us at this point, to advocate for that flexibility. But I think that in a moment like this, this moment in our, in our history here, it's even more important to be flexible and responsive. And I think that we have demonstrated that in the last year at the institution, that people get that, and people working together to try to make that happen. As barriers that exist outside, there's not much we can do You know, you're alluding to kind of the political climate that may be contributing to a shortage in the fields that you're discussing. There's not much we can do about that except, you know, acknowledge PCC's commitment to protecting our students and our community and, you know, being a safe haven for that. And you need to develop these pipelines and our students coming through, but those are very real issues.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:23:28]:
You mentioned something just that struck a chord with me is how our colleagues and our institution have adjusted in order to respond. I just wanted to give a shout out. It's our podcast, it's this college's podcast, so why not? Our colleagues have been instrumental and outstanding to work with and to support our community. I believe strongly that every single person that walks in these doors in our institution is here to respond and support our community. I believe that full-heartedly. And while, yes, we are kind of doing things out of the ordinary, we're testing a few things, and everyone has been so gracious and so willing and able, and able because why? Because we care. Like this institution, our colleagues that we work with, We genuinely care about the health and vitality of our students and our community. And it's that to me, like, even just reflecting back this year has been just amazing to be a part of.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:24:39]:
The other area that I thought of while you were sharing was the value of our partners. So, a lot of our work, the majority of our work has been in partnership. With our community organizations. So we talk about like immediate, now, and future. In the immediate, YMCA was a beautiful partner to us. And of course, the City of Pasadena, they were exceptional in working with us in the immediate response. And then we started developing our programming. And when we did that, Harbor Freight came to the table and we did the Skills to Rebuild, a rigorous summer program with Harbor Freight Tools for Schools, and they have been instrumental in supporting us and our programming and our students.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:25:27]:
They have been great at supporting the College Corps program. Habitat for Humanity, they've been incredibly responsive to our community and working with us. And I also think about United Way. I'm also thinking about the chancellor's office that went and advocated for our colleges to be able to grant more funding to us to do the work. And the list goes on. And I apologize in advance if any of our listeners and like, why isn't Sour Truth mentioned? It's not intentional in any way. I'm just kind of thinking about as programs are popping up in my mind, our partners on the business side of the house, Wells Fargo Philanthropy, US Bank Philanthropy arm, 11:11 Media, GoFundMe, our own PCC Foundation, all of these partners And, and I know that I'm missing a lot of foundation partners, the Balmer Group, uh, there's others, there's so many others. Listeners, please understand there's so many others.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:26:28]:
But the point of the story is, or the point of my statement is that our work has been that much more impactful because of the partnerships that we have in our community. This doesn't happen alone. Like Leslie, you and I both know that anything that we do as a division doesn't happen alone. Like we have to have our community. Partners because we all have different assets that we bring to the table. So why not braid the assets and create more impact? But it's been amplified, the value of private-public nonprofit partnerships, like that whole synergetic work has been amplified. And it's great to know that PCC, under our leadership, our existing leadership, understands that those synergetic partners are essential to the work and critical to our work. and we continue to value those partnerships, of course, but work towards supporting one another.

Leslie Thompson  [00:27:19]:
That's a high note to end on. The importance of these relationships can't be overstated. I also would like to put in there this idea that PCC is committed to maintaining its role as a resource hub, right? Mm-hmm. And evolving as necessary. And should there come opportunities for us to be part of addressing any of those forementioned challenges, I'm confident that the institution will respond accordingly. Those things are evolving. Those things will change eventually. You know, more people will get their insurance paid out.

Leslie Thompson  [00:27:51]:
More people will get the permits they need. It's going to tick up. And when it does, probably I'm hoping for this kind of like beautiful everything coming together at the right time. Just as soon as it picks up, we're going to be, you know, having people having gone through these pathways that are going to be ready to to get in there and do the actual work that needs to be done. And it's not just swinging hammers, by the way. It's a lot of support. It's a lot of— there's a lot of work to be done in different capacities and different roles and titles. So I know we talk about it a lot in terms of construction, right? Because that the physical construction is something that needs to happen.

Leslie Thompson  [00:28:31]:
But, but they're going to need accountants, they're going to need architects, they're going to need all sorts of stuff, right? All sorts positions and all sorts of talent. So hopefully, it'll all come together at the same time. Just as soon as that need ticks up, we're ready to respond. So we have a little bit of time to keep building. I mean, I know there's a sense of urgency because, you know, we have to be, you know, responsive. But I think that all these parts are moving, eventually will line up in a way that we'll be ready to meet that need and that demand.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:28:59]:
Yeah. When you say the uptick and ready to respond, our institution's vision is to have a workforce training hub, a dedicated CTE building around skills trades. And that's what we're working on. And that's what we're going to continue to work on. And we're going to work on it with our philanthropic partners, with our governor's office, with our county, who, by the way, both the governor's office and the county and our legislators, just everyone has been so awesome. To work with. Just like, I mean, just absolutely incredible to be able to sit in a space where everyone is leaning yes instead of no. Again, I just can't stress enough how incredible this whole journey has been.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:29:47]:
But our North Star, Leslie, our institution's North Star is to really have that CTE hub, that training center. And I can't wait. I can't wait for it to happen because it'll be again, so impactful, not just for our community, but for the entire county. For the entire county, we will be developing talent.

Leslie Thompson  [00:30:12]:
I can't wait to see that.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:30:13]:
Yeah, everyone's been hard at work.

Leslie Thompson  [00:30:15]:
I appreciate the conversation and kind of looking back and looking forward. I appreciate you sharing the North Star because that's important too. We did have that groundbreaking in January, which was fun.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:30:26]:
A lot of stuff going on. Well, thank you, Leslie. Thanks for joining me. It's nice to do these recaps because sometimes we get so boggled down in the work that we don't really kind of lift our heads up to say, gosh, like, okay, we've done some stuff. We've done some stuff and here's where we need to go. And these kind of conversations underscore the momentum and it underscores the value of not only conversations like this, but again, our partners and our colleagues. Importantly, our colleagues here on the campus. But thank you.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:30:57]:
Thanks for joining.

Leslie Thompson  [00:30:59]:
Thank you. Have a good day.

Dr. Salvatrice Cummo [00:31:00]:
You too. 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. All of us here at the Future of Work and Pasadena City College wish you safety and wellness.