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Meet merged Pinellas, Hillsborough workforce agency’s first CEO

Mark Parker

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Keidrian Kunkel emerged from a nationwide search to become the first permanent CEO of CareerSource Hillsborough Pinellas. Photo provided.

A recently consolidated workforce agency’s inaugural chief executive officer hopes to bolster apprenticeship programs and reach disconnected youth throughout Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties in 2025.

Keidrian Kunkel will not officially take the helm at CareerSource Hillsborough Pinellas until Jan. 9. However, she is ready to hit the ground running after an arduous – and oft-contentious – nationwide search for the organization’s first leader. CareerSource’s workforce development consortium named Kunkel the new CEO at a Dec. 9 meeting.

She believes Tampa Bay’s new CareerSource, which serves an area with roughly 2.5 million people, can become a national model for post-merger success.

“You’re not running this well-oiled machine that’s already running seamlessly,” Kunkel said. “This is a very unique challenge, and I think it’s a unique challenge that many workforce boards around the country will probably face over the next several years.”

Kunkel frequently credited the organization’s leadership teams on both sides of the bay. She hopes those “good bones” will help her achieve some lofty goals, starting with expanding apprenticeship programs beyond construction-related fields.

Kunkel believes the region’s booming healthcare industry provides an opportunity to increase on-the-job training efforts. She also called that “truly a magic wand scenario” in 2025 due to the time needed to overcome barriers.

“But I have seen it done before,” Kunkel added. “Sometimes you have to do it in small bites.”

She said CareerSource already has good, but costly, ideas. The organization must raise $5 million to adequately serve Tampa Bay’s opportunity youth – those aged 18 to 24 that remain disconnected from employment and education.

Expediting that fundraising process is critical as Kunkel said looming CareerSource mergers and the potential loss of federal funding could strain limited resources. She noted the local agency has already completed “wonderful” studies to identify “different pockets in our communities that are in dire need.”

Researchers found that Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties are home to 27,000 opportunity youth. More people are now leaving rather than entering the U.S. workforce as Baby Boomers retire, underscoring the need to reach disconnected young adults.

“They are truly the hardest to serve, and we want to ensure we’re giving them every opportunity to be successful,” Kunkel said. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

She elaborated that establishing and strengthening relationships with school districts could help “capture” youth before they graduate or “make the hard decision to drop out.” Kunkel also plans to work in lockstep with local community colleges.

She will spend her first 30 to 60 days as CEO outlining and coordinating agency policies, primarily those related to daily job center services. Kunkel stressed the importance of identifying commonalities and streamlining processes to eliminate confusion and increase efficiency.

She also wants to meet job seekers in the community and eliminate potential transportation barriers. Kunkel believes she and her leadership team can “present some meaningful and impactful local policy revisions to the board for approval relatively quickly.”

The area is still reeling from an unprecedented hurricane season. Kunkel said CareerSource will work with hospitality and tourism industry leaders along the coast to discern “pain points.”

While the agency will help reconnect displaced workers with similar jobs, Kunkel said others may seek new skills or career pathways. She pledged that CareerSource will use “all the tools and resources we have” to help storm victims find “meaningful, self-sufficient employment.”

A $600,000 grant from FloridaCommerce will aid those efforts. In addition to funding temporary job opportunities, the money will support career development services and restoration efforts.

A consolidated CareerSource faced some initial growing pains as stakeholders in Pinellas and Hillsborough rushed to name an interim, at the minimum, CEO before a state-mandated July 1 deadline. Board Chairperson Barclay Harless said Kunkel’s “leadership and passion” separated her from other candidates during a nationwide search.

“I believe she has the right skills to lead our organization into a new era of innovation and growth,” Harless said in a prepared statement. “I expect CareerSource to become a leader on both sides of the bay for businesses, job seekers and as an economic convener for our dynamic region.”

Kunkel most recently served as senior operations director for Eckerd Connects, overseeing workforce development regions in Louisiana, Maryland and North Carolina. CareerSource said the role required “transformational leadership” to achieve performance goals.

The merged agency’s first CEO now eagerly anticipates a new challenge. Kunkel noted both boards were already “operating on a very high level” and reiterated her intent to hit the ground running by “taking what we already have and building some innovative strategies and initiatives.”

“I think workforce board mergers are something that will become more popular as time goes on,” Kunkel said. “And so, it really poises us to be a leader in the state and around the country.”

 

 

 

 

1 Comment

1 Comment

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    S

    December 29, 2024at1:43 am

    Frankly, We Need a Plain English Law

    We should pass a law that says anything involving the expenditure of tax dollars must be written in plain English, free of gibberish and jargon like this. Imagine how much clearer—and less migraine-inducing—government communication would be if it actually made sense to regular people.

    Can You Imagine Writing This Down?

    Reading this article is one thing, but imagine being the poor writer tasked with translating government bureaucrat gibberish-speak into something resembling English. It’s like trying to turn a pile of spaghetti into a neatly folded napkin—impossible without making a huge mess. Here’s how that would probably go:

    1. “Workforce Development Consortium”
    The writer hears this and thinks, Oh great, another term that could mean anything from ‘job agency’ to ‘a group of people who occasionally meet for donuts.’ They probably Googled it, stared blankly at the results, and then just copied the term verbatim, hoping no one asks them to explain it.

    2. “Post-merger success”
    Translation for the writer’s brain: “They combined two offices and want me to make it sound like they cured cancer.” Cue internal monologue: How do I make this sound triumphant without bursting into laughter?

    3. “Good bones”
    Imagine the writer sitting there, wondering if they accidentally wandered into a conversation about real estate. “Good bones”? Are we flipping a house or running a job board? They probably debated asking for clarification but decided, Nah, I don’t have the emotional energy for that.

    4. “Opportunity youth”
    The writer probably rolled their eyes so hard they saw their brain. “So, we’re calling unemployed young people ‘opportunity youth’ now? Sure, let’s make poverty sound like a scholarship program.”

    5. “Magic wand scenario”
    Picture the writer typing this and muttering, “Am I in a Harry Potter sequel? Do they expect readers to believe they’re actually waving wands over these problems?”

    6. “Pain points”
    By now, the writer has resigned themselves to the fact that they’ll have to type phrases that sound like a chiropractor’s weekly agenda. “Pain points? Really? They can’t just say ‘problems’? Let me just get out my thesaurus of corporate nonsense.”

    7. “Economic convener”
    The writer probably took a sip of coffee, blinked slowly, and thought, “So… they’re like a job DJ? Mixing up business and job seekers at the local economic dance party?”

    8. “Transformational leadership”
    Imagine typing this and realizing it could mean anything from “they showed up to work on time” to “they successfully piloted a spaceship.” The writer likely shrugged and thought, “Sure, let’s just make this person sound like a cross between Oprah and Tony Robbins.”

    9. “Streamlining processes to eliminate confusion and increase efficiency”
    By this point, the writer is probably banging their head on the keyboard, mumbling, “Why can’t they just say ‘fixing stuff to make it work better’? Oh, right, because that’s too normal.”

    10. “Poises us to be a leader”
    Imagine typing this sentence while thinking, “Poises? Who talks like this? Is this a yoga class or a workforce initiative?” The writer likely glanced at their word count, sighed, and left it in.

    The True Hero

    The real MVP here isn’t the bureaucrats with their jargon; it’s the writer who managed to endure an onslaught of nonsensical phrases and stitch them together into something that passes for an article. Somewhere out there, they’re sipping coffee, hoping readers realize that beneath all the magic wand scenarios and pain points, someone is just trying to say, “We’re helping people find jobs, but it’s kinda hard right now.”

    Frankly, it’s high time we made plain English a requirement for anything that touches taxpayer money. Let’s banish phrases like “economic convener” and “pain points” to the jargon graveyard where they belong!

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