Crystal Gunter is a Youth Program Specialist with the San Diego Workforce Partnership. Here she describes her role, discusses what she likes best about working in workforce development and shares one of her proudest professional moments.
Tell us about your role at SDWP.
I am a Program Specialist at SDWP and oversee approx. $1.4 million in youth workforce development funds through our youth service provider contracts. I am also the lead staff on the SDWP Youth Council and have worked on many projects, including human-centered design, which is working on creating a youth system that is customer-focused. My goal is to make our complicated processes simpler and easier to understand.
What do you like best about working in workforce development?
The people you get to meet — including coworkers, partner organizations, board members and program participants.
What professional moment or project are you most proud of?
I have been working at SDWP for over 7 years so I have worked on a lot of programs and projects. I actually helped pick out the name for CONNECT2Careers (C2C) and the color scheme for the logos and collateral during its transition from “Hire-A-Youth.” I worked on a lot of the collateral for Hire-A-Youth and C2C, which helped secure additional funding from the City of San Diego. I also participated in the 12-week Acumen course on human-centered design, during which we developed a peer-to-peer outreach guide for our youth providers. Our team was selected to present at the White House and will also present at NAWDP in November.