Sarah Horowitz is a member of the marketing and communications team at the San Diego Workforce Partnership. This month we asked Sarah about her work, how she would spend a workforce development donation and how she spends her free time.
What is a typical day like for you?
While I always start my day the same (turn on my computer and open Chrome, Outlook, Teams and OneNote), that’s where the day-to-day similarities often end. As a support team, marketing & communications works with every department at the Workforce Partnership, so our areas of focus vary day-to-day—and often hour-to-hour.
My portfolio includes Information & Communications Technology, Learning, Research and Business Engagement, along with making website updates, managing special projects and more. I enjoy having a pulse on what so many different teams are working on and determining how best to amplify their work, both internally and externally. Collaborating with different teams is truly inspiring; I’m constantly amazed by the incredible work coming out of each team. Plus, it’s exciting to have so many different projects going on at one time—it’s impossible to feel bored!
If you had $30,000 to donate to a workforce development program, what would you want done with it?
I would love to donate $30,000 toward a workforce development program that focuses on creating career pathways for high school students into blue and green jobs, aligned with intended goals and outcomes of the Green Jobs Act of 2007, the Climate Resilient SD plan produced by the City of San Diego in 2018, as well as California’s recently released Scoping Plan. The Scoping Plan is especially significant as it’s the world’s first detailed pathway to carbon neutrality by 2045.
By 2030, about 25 million young adults ages 15–29 are expected to enter the labor force searching for employment worldwide, per the International Labour Organization. Connecting this pipeline with in-classroom career-technical education and work experience education in blue and green occupations will not only increase pro-environmental attitudes, beliefs and actions, but will also train the next generation of job seekers with the necessary skills to tangibly address climate change in San Diego and beyond.
What do you enjoy doing when you’re not working?
I am at my happiest when I am outside, among trees or water, in the mountains, at the beach or in the desert. Moving to San Diego from the Bay Area at the end of 2020 meant that I had a new natural world to explore—only in southern California is it actually warm enough to be outside every day of the year!
My husband, Max, and I picked up surfing earlier this year, have explored trails in local canyons and parks, gone kayaking in Mission Bay and out to La Jolla Cove, and did the 18-mile hike out to Goat Trestle Bridge in Anza Borrego last winter. I love bouldering and sport climbing, though I have a bad habit of freezing at the top of a boulder like a cat in a tree.