Two members of the San Diego Workforce Partnership (SDWP) leadership team—Brooke Valle, Vice President of Programs, and Karmin Noar, Director of Programs—were honored as finalists in the San Diego Business Journal’s Business Women of the Year Awards on November 15. The annual event recognizes dynamic business leaders and role models, selected for their achievements and contributions to San Diego companies.
Valle currently oversees Research, Data & Evaluation, Business Programs and IT. During her time at SDWP, she has led our regional planning efforts with other workforce boards in the state, and successfully wrote and designed SDWP’s English Language Learner (ELL) grant—$500,000 to promote increased access, create and enhance program structure and availability, and provide supportive services within the workforce system for California’s ELL population. She has transformed not only performance, tracking, data and quality for the Eligible Training Provider List, but has also been driving the transformation of contracts to pay-for-performance models (financial incentives for meeting certain performance measures).
Noar oversees programs, including CONNECT2Careers (C2C) and STEAM initiatives, effectively working with her team to achieve C2C enrollment goals (which have doubled to 2,000 this year). Under her leadership, C2C has become known for excellence from educators, elected officials, community partners, young adults and other stakeholders. The C2C team’s work developing relationships and writing grants for The San Diego Foundation and The James Irvine Foundation have resulted in over $1.2 million in revenue growth. In addition, Noar and her team have been the leading edge of supporting and amplifying the youth voice, employing human-centered designs in working with opportunity youth.
The Business Women of the Year Awards (formerly Women Who Mean Business) program celebrated its 24th year in honoring the exceptional women who have made a difference in San Diego’s business, cultural and civic scene. Nominations were judged on nominees’ innovation, entrepreneurship, professional accomplishment and community leadership.
In addition, CEO Peter Callstrom is one of the featured executives honored at an SDBJ private cocktail reception on December 6. Also honored were Workforce Development Board Chair Phil Blair, President of Manpower Staffing/San Diego, and board members Susie Harborth, Managing Director/Co-founder of BioLabs San Diego, John Ohanian, CEO of 2-1-1 San Diego, and Timothy West, Executive Director and Region Manager of JPMorgan Chase Middle Market Banking.