Building Careers
Posted by Gil Jones
on Apr 20, 2015
Mickey West Career Assets charitable fund seeks to aid the Highland Lakes workforce in achieving a career pathway.
The goal is to alleviate critical skill shortages throughout the Highland Lakes by helping adults succeed in post-secondary training, certifications, and degrees. The program brings together leaders in business, education, non-profits, and government to design workforce training for specific high-demand occupations that are important to our regional economy.
The lead organizers are Gail Davalos of Horseshoe Bay, and Celia Merrill of Marble Falls. Davalos founded Mickey West Career Assets, a 501(c)(3) charitable fund, to establish and sustain the multi-agency partnerships of a Highland Lakes workforce training program and to provide services that enable participants to stay on a career pathway. 
This graphic demonstrates the synergy that Gail and Celia hope to foster.Those partnerships then endeavor to create a career pathway for workers by a systematic program to help not only the unemployed worker get the first job but then to sustain them through development in a career path leading to improved skills and qualifications for better employment.
Theirs is a concept for a regional adult career pathway that will move people from entry-level jobs upward, with a focus on the "working poor." An especially important feature of the training caught my eye -- that of "soft skills" such as greeting the public, customer relations and other interpersonal skills that are so important in the industries being focused on. Those include healthcare, hospitality, information technology, construction and light manufacturing.