Today we’d like to introduce you to Andy Hall.
Andy, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I was born in Pasadena, grew up in Murrieta, and have lived in San Diego for the last 11 years. I went to UC San Diego where I met Ingrid, my wife of almost five years, and double majored in Economics and History. I tried to play basketball there but wasn’t good enough, which turned out to be one of the most important inflection points in my story.
I filled the time I thought I would be spending on the basketball court learning Spanish and (barely) was accepted into a research program that helped shaped where I am today.
Part of the program included a three-week trip to a small rural Mexican town of a thousand people in Oaxaca where we interviewed as many people as we could. I was nervous at first, but the people were welcoming, beautiful, and resilient. Warming temperatures and drought had made farming in this agrarian town so difficult that farmers could no longer feed their families, so many left for the U.S. to find work. In each interview, we talked about their families, their travel in the U.S., health, work, hobbies, aspirations and fears. They fed us, introduced us to their children, and invited us to play baseball and join them at the town’s annual festival.
Before I went, all I heard about the immigration debate was a story someone else was telling. The people I spoke to were so grateful that someone made the trip to their hometown and asked them to tell their story. Looking back on the first 10 years of my career, I realize now that much of my work has been centered on elevating the stories that too often go unheard. That is a big part of what I enjoy about my current work at the San Diego Workforce Partnership (SDWP).
Has it been a smooth road?
One rough patch I faced was right after I graduated from UCSD in 2010. It was the height of the “Great Recession” and I was working a few different part-time jobs trying to pay student loans, live in San Diego and find a career. After hundreds of job applications, a couple of interviews and no luck landing a gig for about a year, I was a couple of months away from moving back in with my parents when I found an entry-level job at Public Consulting Group with benefits, salary and a career path. The twelve months before that were pretty dark for me. I felt like I had done all the right things but was just going further into debt.
That being said, sure, I had some struggles, but I’m a white man born into a loving, middle-class family in a neighborhood with paved streets and good schools. I had an education, some connections, my parents…not everyone has all of that. It’s a privilege.
Growing up, I remember learning the phrase “to whom much is given, much will be required” from the gospel of Luke. The longer I go on this walk, the more I understand that not all lives have equal opportunities to thrive. That is not right, and I take very seriously my responsibility to work toward a better world. My work at SDWP is a powerful vehicle to carry out that responsibility.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
The San Diego Workforce Partnership is working on reviving the declining American Dream—but not the two-story house, golden retriever and white picket fence version. I’m talking about the dream that our kids will be better off than us when we go. The idea that no matter who you are or where you are born, you get an equal opportunity to make it based on the content of your character. That kids born poor have just as much a shot as kids born rich. Unfortunately, big data shows us that this vision of the American Dream is slipping away—and for some, never existed at all.
Through $35M in annual investments in workforce development, SDWP is working to reverse these trends through the research we do, the programs we fund and run, and the initiatives we lead.
To make it concrete, our research found that 43,000 (or almost one in ten young adults ages 16–24) in San Diego County are not in school and not working (what we sometimes call “disconnected”). A disproportionate number of these young people are from poor neighborhoods. Black, Hispanic and Native American young adults are significantly more likely to be disconnected than white ones. We responded by investing over $8M each year in serving youth that are incarcerated, in the foster care system and/or have dropped out of school, through programs like CONNECT2Careers.
But we know that our investment alone is just a drop in the bucket to reduce youth disconnection in San Diego. Education systems, lack of health care, homelessness, criminal justice, family, lack of transportation and child care, and so many other things all play a role. We bring together leaders from business, government, philanthropy, education, nonprofits and young adults to outline solutions, including a summit of 750+ people on April 12, 2018. I hope you can join us. RSVP at workforce. Or/summit2018.
At the same time, San Diego businesses tell us that the number one issue holding back their growth and expansion is a shortage of talent.
Our work bridges the divide between the San Diego that is growing, thriving, and creating unprecedented levels of wealth and prosperity and the San Diego that isn’t. We’d all be better off if our region fielded a full team.
Contact Info:
- Website: workforce.org
- Email: AndyHall@workforce.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/c2csd/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sdworkforce
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/sdworkforce
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