After four decades of dedication to workforce development and 31 years driving systems change at Corporation for a Skilled Workforce, President & CEO Larry Good is retiring at year end. He’ll be succeeded as CSW’s President & CEO by Kysha Frazier, a 15-year member of CSW’s team who has most recently been Vice President of Policy & Strategy.
In 1991, Larry had just ended seven years as a leader in Michigan’s Governor’s Office for Job Training and recognized the need for human capital work across the country focused on building pathways for economic mobility. Phil Power, who had been chair of Michigan’s state workforce board, and his wife, Kathy Power, agreed to provide start-up support and create Corporation for a Skilled Workforce (CSW) as a non-profit “think and do” charged with increasing skills and pathways to self-sustaining employment in the United States.
At the outset, much of CSW’s work centered on reemployment and retraining strategies for workers being dislocated from their jobs as a result of changing technologies and occupations. As CSW grew, its focus expanded, evolving into its current iteration: envisioning a society in which every person is able to earn a family-sustaining income, achieve upward mobility, and adapt to the future. Today, CSW works nation-wide to catalyze change in educational and labor market systems, developing policies and practices to increase economic mobility, particularly for people of color and others historically excluded from success.
Larry was CSW’s initial CEO for its first 15 years and returned to that role in 2019. In between, he served as chair of CSW’s board and as a senior policy fellow, working on specific initiatives. Regardless of what role he was in, Larry has always been an integral leader and team member. His retirement, though well-deserved, will leave a lasting impact on CSW’s work and staff. To better catalog Larry’s successes, we asked for his thoughts on CSW’s past and how that informs its future, as well as his goals for retirement.
What work are you most proud of?
I’m very proud of CSW’s work overall in the past 31 years. Three areas of focus in which I played a role stand out for me:
First, CSW’s partnership with the National Governors Association (NGA) and the National Network of Sector Partners (NNSP) to engage states in adopting and developing sector strategies. In the late 1990s, with foundation support a handful of innovative non-profits had piloted initiatives in which training and employment of low-income workers was done in a sector basis rather than only focusing on individual companies. The pilots were evaluated and found to improve success both for the companies and for the workers being trained and hired. With support from the Charles Stewart Mott and Ford Foundations, CSW, NGA and NNSP convened policy academies and a learning network for states designed to introduce this approach into state policy and practice. In a four-year project, we were able to move sector strategies from something 4-5 states were experimenting with to a well-developed approach twenty-five states were using. Today, these strategies are widely accepted and used across the country.
Second, I’m very proud of our work with the city of Detroit and state of Michigan across many years. CSW was born in Michigan, and we made a commitment to contribute to creating economic recovery when Detroit and Michigan were devastated in the Great Recession. In 2014, we were approached by JP Morgan Chase to do a research study identifying key Detroit workforce issues and the state of the local workforce system. The CSW staff did great work on the studies, and statistics from them are still used today by community leaders as they evolve strategies. The reports set the table for building a workforce strategy in the city. Detroit today has a leading-edge workforce strategy, as good as any in the country. That’s light-years different than it was twenty years ago.
Similarly, in the early 2000’s, CSW worked closely with then-Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm’s team when the state was being devastated by auto industry change that included large-scale downsizing. I had the opportunity to work with her lead workforce person, Andy Levin, to develop and support implementation of No Worker Left Behind, the first statewide free tuition offer for workers losing their jobs and/or having low-income. The initiative reached more than 100,000 at risk Michiganders and served as a basis for current Reconnect initiatives in Michigan and other states.
Third, I’m very proud of CSW’s work centered on increasing the use of competencies and credentials, which I launched in partnership with CSW Senior Fellow Keith Bird, former chancellor of the Kentucky community college system and a team of co-conspirators. We partnered with Lumina Foundation to do Connecting Credentials, which brought to light the need for work to make credentials understandable and of quality and was a large-scale network building of change agents rethinking educational and work-based credentialing. We’re currently doing cutting edge work supporting the state of Alabama on using competencies as a common language across job descriptions, educational programs, and credentials. CSW is also a partner with SUNY-Empire State College and George Washington University to lead the nationwide Credential As You Go initiative, in which colleges are building incremental credentials that employers recognize while also counting towards degrees. When CSW started, “the importance of lifelong learning” was a platitude you’d put in a speech. Now, it’s essential and at the core of our work.
What was the biggest turning point for CSW’s success?
There have been multiple eras of CSW’s work since its founding in 1991. The first major turning point was a period of rapid growth in the late 1990s when we became a national leader in supporting states and local communities in building strong workforce boards and in developing high-quality one-stop workforce centers.
Next was when I stepped aside as CEO in 2006 and Jeannine LaPrad took over the position. We both felt the work CSW was doing at the time wasn’t strategic enough and was stuck at the project level; we felt like a consulting group with a portfolio of projects. Jeannine and I both wanted to focus on impact. We redesigned CSW to focus on systemic change through policy and practice and developed our first teams to focus on aspects of our mission.
When Jeannine took over as CEO, I became the Chair of CSW’s Board of Directors. We undertook a deliberate board makeover; we tripled the size of the board and greatly diversified its membership. We now have an incredibly high-quality Board of Directors which is a huge asset to CSW.
Another major turning point was launching state of the workforce reports in 2000. We created reports that told a clear, compelling story about a region’s workforce and related challenges, using core labor market and socio-economic information combined with local interviews and focus groups. We frequently helped our local sponsors facilitate community dialogues and develop action strategies based on the reports. Ever since that beginning, CSW has stayed expert in making meaning from workforce-related data sources.
A much more recent major turning point was when we received a small grant in 2019 from Associated Black Charities to study how CSW was dealing with racial equity and inclusion, both in our work and within our organization. We used the grant to learn how to deliberately integrate REI into CSW’s projects and operating systems. It began an internal change, led by Kysha, that resulted in making REI a mission-level part of CSW.
What do you feel was your most important decision as CSW’s leader?
A pair of decisions I made when I returned to the CEO role in late 2019 stand out for me. First, focusing on making CSW very transparent, inclusive, and participatory across our whole staff was essential. We’d had that culture in CSW’s early years, but it had faded some over time. Restoring it strengthened CSW as a place great staff want to be part of and strengthened our ability to collaboratively support each other and do amazing work.
Second was focusing on building a much stronger leadership and management capacity within the organization. The first organizational chart we put out in January 2021 after strategic planning had three management seats vacant, creating the opportunity to identify strong leaders and good teammates to fill those roles. A key part of that strengthening was giving Kysha Frazier the opportunity to serve as Vice President and become my partner in rebuilding CSW. We’re much, much stronger than we were two years ago, and Kysha’s leadership is a key reason why. Her growth in that role created a logical internal succession when I decided to retire. Having someone ready to move into the President & CEO position internally is a sign of healthy organizational development.
What was the best advice you ever received?
CSW would have much greater impact if we stayed mission-driven and deliberately focused on strategies for which we had a clear theory of change. As I retire, I’m deeply indebted to Jeannine and Jan Urban-Lurain, a long-time strategic consultant at CSW and an invaluable partner in building the organization. Jeannine and Jan were incredible partners for many years in building CSW, and both challenged me when necessary to ensure CSW was doing the right work.
Another impactful piece of advice a peer once gave me: the size of an organization matters and there are certain sizes at which the economics will never work out. CSW was never very viable at 10-12 people, but 20-25 plus has been a highly effective size. Realizing this was very helpful in strategizing internally, helping us know if we needed to upsize or downsize.
What’s your best advice for someone looking to make a change in workforce development?
Be patient and tenacious. It often takes multiple approaches over time and many different angles to get something to actually move. As an example, I’ve been working on systemic change in adult education policy, & funding in Michigan for forty years, with some successes but not the scalable improvements that are essential. I never took my eye off that need and looked for opportunities where it made sense to engage leaders at the state and/or local level to tackle adult education strategies. I’ve been part of at least five major efforts to improve adult education in Michigan over the years.
The core theory of change I’ve always worked from is a tipping point strategy: work initially with early adopters — those who already understand the problem and want to make change, rather than trying to change the unaware or reluctant. Early adopters will take risks and demonstrate the possibilities of an innovation, and they’re great partners in reimagining strategies and services. Their success will lead others to join in, and once you reach 25%-30% of the overall target group, the rest ultimately follow.
Finally, be integrative. One of the core challenges of doing anything in workforce development is how many silos it touches. Every federal agency has people doing workforce development, and that’s similarly true in states and local communities, so this work lives all over the place. If you’re trying to do systems change, it doesn’t do any good to focus on only one department or funding source. You have to get a lot of people aligned and show the interconnections between departments. We used to show Venn diagrams to demonstrate the intersection points in systems change. It requires that kind of analytics to demonstrate who the stakeholders are.
What do you wish people knew about CSW?
I wish more people knew the amazing work CSW does in significant systems change initiatives around the country. It’s been hard to publicize that work coherently over time. The joke is that CSW is one of the best kept secrets in workforce development. We’ve made a lot of strides, but like many nonprofits, it’s difficult to be known for work we do behind the scenes; developing strategies that help others do things, rather than doing things ourselves. We have an incredible staff, a great board, and over three decades of experience. The intent of what we do hasn’t changed over time. We’ve always been known for taking on tough issues, working with people who are trying to make a difference in those issues, and being a contributor to the scale and pace of change needed to resolve workforce issues.
What do you hope CSW accomplishes over the next decade?
I hope CSW makes an impact on racial equity in education and in labor markets. As I reflect on 40 years in workforce development, during that time the racial gaps in educational attainment, employment, income, and wealth have worsened, not improved. It’s unquestionably harder for someone who is Black or Latinx to have the same educational or work opportunities, and that has to change. I hope during this decade that CSW has at least one more major reinvention of its work that stays at the leading edge of where change is needed. I hope CSW keeps its agility and continues to hire really good staff who are able to work on things they think are important and have the resources they need to accomplish that work.
Will you still be involved with CSW after you retire?
I have a couple of projects that I’m in the middle of that I’ll be involved with until their conclusion, but that will be a very limited amount of time over the next few months. For the time being, I’m keeping my CSW email address, and my phone number won’t change. If someone wants history or advice on something I’m happy to give it, but I’m also not going to be offended if I don’t hear from people. I’m really retiring, not switching to consulting. I’ve had a long, fulfilling run and it’s time for Kysha and others to lead and innovate.
How do you plan to spend your retirement?
The first thing is I’m turning off my alarm clock. I’m tired of my life being regimented around a calendar full of meetings. What I’ll do a lot of the first several months is simply not work. I’ve worked nonstop since I was twenty years old. That’s five decades; I need some breathing time in which I’m not responsible for a whole lot except to discover what life is like when you’re not working. I remarried last February, and my new wife Pam Haggerty is a veteran retiree who will help me figure out the future. I already know Pam and I will be going to 41 Detroit Tigers games next season. I’m looking forward to having more recreational time. I have a massive comic book collection that needs more maintenance, and I’ll be able to dedicate more time to bowling. We’ll take a trip or two along the way, finally get around to unpacking boxes sitting in our basement. Mostly, I’m looking forward to doing all the things there hasn’t been time for while working.
It is with fondness and admiration that the team at Corporation for a Skilled Workforce bid Larry farewell and wish him all the best in his retirement. Larry will officially vacate his role as 2022 ends, ushering in Kysha Frazier as President & CEO. If you would like to send Larry best wishes, you can reach him at lagood@skilledwork.org.
Comments are closed.