Clara Ponton and Josh Meramore possess two success stories that make Sen. Patty Murray proud.
During her visit to the Redmond WorkSource Center on Aug. 18 to discuss job-training programs, Murray learned about how the two attendees broke their way back into the workforce following some struggles. Murray’s work in Congress helped pass a bipartisan program — the Workforce Investment and Opportunity Act (WIOA) — and has aided Ponton, Meramore and many others in building careers and putting their passions into play.
Ponton, who was long-term unemployed after being laid off from Microsoft, visited the local WorkSource, participated in two WIOA-funded training programs and has returned to work at Microsoft as a customer relationship manager. Additionally, she meets regularly with a group of women she befriended at WorkSource’s Back2Work boot camp to discuss career challenges and support each other.
Meramore, a homemaker who needed job skills to support himself and his children after his divorce, utilized WIOA training funds and finished machinist training at the Lake Washington Institute of Technology (LWIT) last September. He’s now an LWIT machining instructor and works with many other WIOA trainees.
“The work you are both doing to build strong career pathways for workers is so important, and I’m glad to have the chance today to hear from you about your efforts and share what I’m focused on back in Washington, D.C. to support you,” Murray said.
Murray also visited EvergreenHealth in Kirkland on Aug. 8 and South Seattle College in Georgetown on Aug. 9 to hear from people with new job-training skills in their career arsenal and employers looking to find workers with skills in the fields of technology, health and beyond.
Murray said her passion for improving workforce training stems from her childhood in Bothell, where her dad ran a five-and-dime store on Main Street until he could no longer work because he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
In order for her mother to get a solid-playing job to support her family of seven children, she earned a two-year accounting degree from the Lake Washington Vocational School.
“I’m proud that WIOA is helping our state continue to develop the most skilled, educated workforce in the country by strengthening services for employers from the state’s regional workforce development councils,” she said.
“The partnership between (her work in Washington, DC) and the Redmond WorkSource Center is a great example of how we can strengthen career pathways for workers — like the work being done in the classrooms I saw today, preparing students for our state’s high-demand industries and labor market.”
Also present during Murray’s Redmond visit were Marléna Sessions, CEO of Workforce Development Council of Seattle-King County; Kelly Lindseth, director of Workforce and Career Development Division; Matt Bench, regional administrator for Northwest Washington, Region 1, of the State Employment Security Department; and Tom Peterson, vice president/general manager of Hoffman Construction Company and chair of the Workforce Development Council of Seattle-King County.
