Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Economic Initiatives Committee, Tuesday, June 13, 2023

Date: Tuesday, June 13, 2023
Place: Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 1h 39m (video)
Official meeting video (Fairfax County): https://video.fairfaxcounty.gov/player/clip/2918
Official Board of Supervisors page (Fairfax County): https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/boardofsupervisors/

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-11-03. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:05] Welcome to the June 13th meeting of the Economic Initiatives Committee. We have a, as usual, for this committee, a very interesting agenda. We will start out with a discussion of the Tysons Community, by the Tysons Community Alliance.

[00:00:24] Great things happening there. Progress way beyond what any of us could have hoped for, I think, just a year ago. And after we have that discussion, we're going to talk about the Talent Up Fairfax program, which is a work-based learning opportunity fund proposal that was initiated in the Economic Advisory Commission, subsequently brought forward to the Economic Initiatives Committee of the board.

[00:00:59] And what we hope to do today is finalize board approval or get to the point where we can finalize board approval of the program at July 11th meeting, unless, of course, there are issues or concerns. I think everybody probably shares my opinion that the Economic Initiatives Department, led by Rebecca Madry and her team, are doing some really good things.

[00:01:32] But they're doing so many things. And so what I have asked is that staff provide us with a NIP that we will be getting over the short term, highlighting some of the major projects that they're working on. And I just, for those who won't be receiving that NIP, I just wanted to mention that they have the Fairfax Founders Fund that they're working on, which is a grant program that we're establishing a total of $1 million from the EOR funding.

[00:02:04] They're working on the Thrive Small Business Technical Assistance Program, which is another grant program which has a total of $7 million from the ARPA funding source. And I think both those are moving forward. The board has signed off on both those.

[00:02:21] The Fairfax CORE, which is really, it's going to be a powerful online resource for businesses across the region to find data that they need to do business in our region. The Fairfax CORE, the CORE stands for Connecting Opportunities and Resources for Entrepreneurs.

[00:02:44] The other thing that they're spending a lot of time and effort and time well spent is the place led economic development that they're focusing on various you know across the county but then targeting specifically some areas that various supervisors are working with with them on so so that's kind of the big things there's obviously a lot more that they're doing and I just wanted to mention before I turn it over that our next EAC meeting the Economic

[00:03:19] Advisory Commission meeting. We're going to be looking at the office market in Fairfax County and begin what I think is going to be a pretty deep dive that we're going to have to make over the coming months trying to make sure that we're doing everything we can to support that market and to look at alternatives perhaps for revenue. With that, we had a set of minutes that were

[00:03:54] distributed prior to the meeting did anyone have any questions or comments you note that the Huntington Club was a major portion of that last meeting and is now on hold so okay with that I think it's time to turn it over to Josh White who is the chairman of the board I think yeah is the title of the Tyson's Community Alliance, and Josh is going to begin to make a presentation

[00:04:32] and I'm sure introduce those who are here with him to the board. Great. Thank you, Supervisor Faust, and good morning, all. What a privilege it is to be here this morning. Thank you. As Supervisor Faust mentioned, I'm Josh White, Chairman of the Board for the Tyson's Community Alliance, or as we call it now, the TCA for short, and I'm also a Senior Vice President.

[00:04:54] President of Development for Elcor. With me today is Rich Bradley, the Acting Executive Director of the TCA, Drew Sutherland, who's back behind my shoulder over here, who is the Senior Director of the TCA, and Katie Crystal, who is the incoming CEO of the TCA, whom you will have an opportunity to hear from a little bit later this morning. To reiterate, just thank you for the opportunity to update you on the progress of establishing and launching the TCA since you heard a planning presentation a year ago. I'd also like to thank you for your initial catalytic EOR financial

[00:05:34] support and now sustained annual funding for the TCA as a contributing agency. It is your staunch support, and in particular, Supervisor Palchek, Supervisor Alcorn, Supervisor Faust, and Chairman McKay that has allowed this organization to thrive since its founding. This morning, we are excited to provide a brief overview of the role of Tysons in the county. Next, we're going to describe the TCA's activities to date, and then we'll wrap up sharing a few next steps for the TCA. As an initial step of launching the TCA, we started with building a baseline of

[00:06:12] market information, which we have augmented with recently completed market research. The data tells the story of the continuing transformation of Tyson's as envisioned and planned into a dynamic mixed-use urban place, home to a diverse mixed-income community that is generating significant economic and fiscal benefits. Our ongoing market analysis clearly demonstrates the foresight of a comprehensive plan and that Tyson's is benefiting from the diversification of its assets and strong desire to build a community-based urban hub, accentuating Tyson's economic importance to all

[00:06:52] of Fairfax County and the region. Tyson's is the second largest workforce in the region and is still relatively young when compared to D.C. Our latest numbers show that Tyson's represents 17% of total jobs in Fairfax County, 17% of all retail buys, and 8% of the fiscal tax to the county.

[00:07:15] And I'll note that that's only on 1% of the total land mass of Fairfax County. One correction is 10% of the retail. Oh, thank you. Change our numbers. Perhaps the most dramatic highlight coming out of the market analysis is the striking growth of residential formation in Tyson's over the last several years.

[00:07:38] The Tyson's population is now just north of 30,000, which is a 96% increase from 2010 when the comprehensive plan was first put into place. There has been a 19% household increase over the last four years, which is four times higher than the rest of Fairfax County.

[00:07:57] Of equal consequence is the diversity of the residential population in Tysons. Taken together, the racial and ethnic mix in Tysons makes it very different than the rest of Fairfax County's residential mix. Interestingly, Tysons is home to more residents with an average lower income when compared to the rest of the county, which implies that Tyson's has a slightly larger share of low to middle income households. Turning our attention to another

[00:08:30] market measure, retail visits have nearly reached pre-pandemic levels. Visits are now at 96% of 2019 levels, with sales in Tyson's totaling 10% of the county's overall retail sales.

[00:08:47] Around 65% of retail spending in Tyson's is carried out by non-residents, emphasizing its position as a regional retail destination. Given its footprint, Tyson's has the capacity to continue growing over the next several decades, both equitably and sustainably.

[00:09:07] And when we look at Tyson's from a regional perspective, comparing its physical size, you can clearly see its significant potential comparing its vast acreage, which dwarfs DC's highest tax generating neighborhoods combined. And if you look at the map, I mean, there's several neighborhoods within the DC market that have their own types of organizations like the TCA, including DuPont Circle, Chinatown, and others. One of the most significant set of indicators is the taxes raised in Tyson's. Together, various kinds of taxes

[00:09:40] generate $268 million annually, which is 8% of the tax base of the county. And again, Tyson's constitutes only 1% of the land mass. It is the mission of the Tyson's Community Alliance to build upon and cultivate this valuable economic asset for Fairfax, while also ensuring the growing diverse community is inclusive to all, which leads us to underscoring TCA's efforts over the past eight months. So shifting our attention to TCA's activities, we've spent the last eight months

[00:10:17] establishing the organization and launching an initial set of services. Using the initial EOR funds received last June, we embarked on a variety of different organizational matters, including but not limited to. We incorporated, we developed bylaws, formed a board of directors, began building an administrative infrastructure, convened our first board meeting in October, and subsequent board meetings in January and April. We officially launched the organization to great fanfare in February. We adopted a work plan and budget. We appointed an executive committee and officers. And with the Board of Supervisors support, we secured an eight-month startup budget

[00:10:56] of $2.5 million. Beginning in November 2022, with the help of a small core staff of three employees and other consultants, as well as enthusiastic and contributory support from the county staff and officials, we launched a set of services targeted to four key programmatic areas.

[00:11:17] Communications and branding, which will tell the Tyson story. Placemaking and place management, which includes our work to activate the public realm through events and pop-up spaces. Transportation and mobility, to champion livability through walkability and connectivity.

[00:11:35] And research and business support, to catalyze inclusive economic growth. The next part of our presentation will be a brief report on those initial activities. Our communication and branding efforts kicked off quickly with a refresh of the brand, which focused on aligning our brand character with that of the Tyson's community. Livable, connected, visionary, authentic, inclusionary, vibrant, vital, and successful. We shored up the tools and tactics necessary to tell the Tyson story. And in February, with enthusiastic support,

[00:12:14] we launched the TCA along with the refreshed brand, website, and social media. We distributed our first monthly newsletter and announced a robust list of TCA events to drive interest while also encouraging community participation. And shortly after, launched the first of two videos extolling why Tyson's is the best place to live, work, and play, with the second video anticipated to premiere later this month. We embarked upon building a community engagement and outreach program that includes TCA events, as well as developing a robust database and platform

[00:12:52] that will serve as the foundation of all our future engagement efforts and plays a big part of our strategic planning efforts, which I will touch on shortly. We've engaged with hundreds of people in the community, all of whom are excited to hear about the TCA and what we are doing, and more importantly, ask how they can be involved in the organization.

[00:13:13] We are extremely encouraged with our initial results and the growth of outreach and engagement as evidenced by our metrics, which are all trending quickly upward. Through our placemaking and events efforts, we look for ways to incorporate ourselves into the community while activating space that will encourage participation and provide opportunities to enjoy the many benefits of living and working in Tysons.

[00:13:40] We look to where we can leverage transit-oriented development due to organic growth along the four metro lines, which connect our neighborhoods and are focusing placemaking activities with a year-long calendar of events. Our TCA events allow us to present a public face while increasing communication and community engagement efforts. The TCA is now a participating organization in the National Cherry Blossom Festival, and we launched our inaugural Petal with Petals event

[00:14:15] in early April. Additionally, we worked with the festival and the National Park Service along with Casey Trees to plant 17 cherry trees in Tyson's in early May. 11 trees can now be found at the head of the Scott's Run Trail and six more at the head of the pedestrian bridge at I-495 on the Tyson's corner side. We can already envision when the trees bloom next March and April and provide a unique experience for residents and visitors to take photos or just relax under the canopies after a long walk on the trails. Transitioning to transportation, we conducted

[00:14:52] a gap analysis to take a closer look at the comprehensive plan's street grid and pedestrian assets to gain a better understanding of the existing pedestrian system and formulate ideas on how to meet the plan's larger urban safety and walkability goals. As we look to build out our transportation program, we continue to work through and manage the inherited TMA program from the Tyson's Partnership while analyzing it and taking the steps necessary to transfer it to the TCA. In late April, as part of our research and business support work, we issued an RFP for

[00:15:30] a comprehensive study and report on the conditions and trends specific to residential, office employment, hospitality, retail, including restaurant and entertainment, and transportation and mobility. This important analysis and report will provide guidelines for ongoing data collection and analysis while establishing a baseline for the TCA. This foundational understanding and benchmark will allow us to monitor our success, identify challenges, as well as to use in our marketing efforts to bring people to Tyson's to live, work, and play.

[00:16:11] One of the key purposes of the Alliance is to help catalyze the continuing transformation of Tyson's into a walkable urban center and community. To help with this process and building on the recently completed market and transportation analysis, we're proud to announce that starting next week, we will be convening a set of strategic planning workgroups guided by the county's comprehensive strategic plan, as well as a comprehensive plan of development. It is our intent to facilitate a community engagement process with a lens focused on diversity, inclusion, equity, and sustainability, which will chart a future direction for Tyson's

[00:16:51] and help shape an action agenda. Our goal is to produce a final report by late fall. You can see a sample of our webpage will look like it is currently under construction, along with some of the questions we will be addressing, such as what additional steps can be taken by all sectors of the Tyson's economy to help meet the county's goals of more equitable development, and what are the strengths of the residential market, and how can these focuses be used to increase the amount of affordable housing and others. We appreciate

[00:17:27] the opportunity to share our progress and our intentions for the future. When we presented the program and budget for the startup year, we identified four goals. The first was to establish an effective organizational infrastructure. Second was to launch a set of key programmatic initiatives. Three was to refresh and ignite a new brand and imagine a Tyson's create a foundation for Future Strategic Planning. We believe that we have met these goals and in some instances even exceeded what we thought we could be able to accomplish in such a short amount of time,

[00:18:07] in large part due to the leadership of this organization and with the dedication and commitment of various board members. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, to help guide the Alliance into the future and building on our initial efforts, led mostly by Rich Bradley, We have selected a permanent CEO who we believe will provide the energy and spirit of collaboration to carry the organization and Tyson's well into the future, Ms. Katie Kristol.

[00:18:38] Katie is a recognized leader in the region. She comes to us after eight successful years of service on the Arlington County Board, where she served on numerous boards, including the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority and the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission, which she also chaired.

[00:18:55] Additionally, she has served in leadership roles in the Virginia Municipal League, the Virginia Railway Express Operations Board, and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments Human Services Policy Committee. She is a strong advocate of affordable housing, racial equity, and community engagement.

[00:19:13] She holds a policy, she holds a public policy master's degree from Princeton University and arguably more importantly, a bachelor's degree from the University of Virginia. Wahoo wah. Thank you, Katie. Thank you. As you can see from this slide, her announcement as the TCA's new CEO garnered great regional press. And we are thrilled to have her start on July 5th as our new CEO and to have her here with us today. And Katie, I'll turn it over to you.

[00:19:45] a few words thank you so much josh and thank you all for having me this morning good morning i am delighted to be joining this organization as the first permanent chief executive officer i am so grateful to the board for their trust and confidence in me and to rich who has done an extraordinary job following through on so many of the activities as josh shared i am through my work elsewhere familiar with a number of models of what we sometimes called anchor organizations and the development of the blueprint for the TCA.

[00:20:14] I have also, by supporting as a facilitator and consultant, the Tyson's coordination team that this board empowered, I believe, two, maybe even three years ago now, had the opportunity to encounter and talk with quite a few others around the country. I will tell you this one is unique for the depth of partnership between public and private sectors.

[00:20:33] The innovation, the risk-taking that members and representatives of Fairfax County government are bringing to this work, The trust and spirit of collaboration that the private sector brings are incredible assets for the TCA to build on. I also just wanted to take the opportunity to thank you all to recognize the funding decisions that you've made as the Board of Supervisors to support the TCA.

[00:20:56] I know that there are many competing priorities when it comes to setting your budget. And the scale of investment that this board has made will allow the TCA to pursue a sophisticated, data-driven work plan, and perhaps most importantly, will enable it to start delivering on real results for quality of life improvements for all kinds of stakeholders, for residents, property owners, workers, and employers in Tysons.

[00:21:21] I am so looking forward to working with many of you all in a new capacity, with some of you all for the first time. And, again, my heartfelt thanks to you for the opportunity and to the TCA board. I am looking forward to getting to work on July 5th. Great. Thank you, Katie.

[00:21:38] And thank you to the EOR. This concludes our presentation this morning. I'd just like to conclude, again, with a thank you to the EOR, again, for your unyielding support. And we look forward to continuing the work in Tysons. We have accomplished a lot, but we say we still have a lot to accomplish.

[00:21:55] and our ongoing commitment to the Tysons and Fairfax County as a whole. So thank you for the time this morning. We sincerely appreciate it. Thank you. Excellent presentation. I would say if you had made that presentation three years from now, I still would have been impressed at how much you had accomplished.

[00:22:13] So it's obvious that people not only putting in the time but putting in the passion and you truly care about what's happening in Tysons. We're so fortunate. I do want to say, you know, from my perspective, that when they start bringing, when Rich and Evan Bram is here somewhere, I think, start bringing these models forward of how we could do this, there were a lot of issues, a lot of questions.

[00:22:45] I mean, you were looking at how other people did it, but in my opinion, you did it better. Yeah, I mean, you took the best of everything that they were doing. And you created an organization that, you know, as you say, it's a partnership between local government, private industry, but also you brought in community, which was critical from a lot of our perspectives because we're involved in from the beginning with the planning for the Tyson's partnership and how the community would have a voice.

[00:23:15] I want to thank you for that. I'm going to turn it over, but before I do, I mentioned Evan. He was really good at responding to questions. It's just amazing.

[00:23:35] But Barbara Byron also, Barbara was there back in 2000, before 10, yeah, with the Tyson's Partnership and always, in my opinion, had the right answer.

[00:23:53] I mean, the issues that weren't obvious she could find and bring and solve. And Tyson's Partnership went well. This is going to go much better, I think. So anyway, in part because I'm in finance. I'm going to call on the chairman, Chairman McKay, and then our two supervisors who have the distinct pleasure and honor to represent Tyson's.

[00:24:23] Well, thank you very much, John. And you said Barbara always had the right answer in the past tense. She still always has the right answers in the present tense. But in all seriousness, excellent presentation, as John said. And thank you, Josh, for chairing through this process and for all the work that you've done to prepare for today and the work that's been done over the last couple of years is just remarkable.

[00:24:49] It's actually almost exactly what we were hoping to see out of the investment that we've made, because this is really the next step and we need to get there. I guess one of the things that really excites me about this that we didn't really mention, but for the rest of the board, so to speak, and I think the metrics in here show how important Tyson's is to the whole county, but this particular effort that we're going through with Tyson's, as we've said several times before, pieces of this can be taken as a model to be used and replicated in other parts of the county.

[00:25:25] And that's what makes this, you know, this brings it to a countywide advantage. And I think whatever you get through your data-driven exercise, through the strategic planning initiative, we're hoping to be able to steal elements of that in other parts of the county that are also trying to activate and mimic in a lot of ways the success that we're having in Tyson's.

[00:25:47] The one question that I wanted to ask, and I think you've hit all the pieces. I mean, honestly, the different elements of the strategic plan are, I think, right on. And I appreciate the focus on equity and inclusion, on residential, particularly, you know, the mention of affordable housing, because I do think we can continue to model things in Tysons, again, that can be replicated countywide.

[00:26:10] But on the office piece, you know, I know that obviously office and workforce is a big part of the strategic plan, but I do think we have aggressive opportunities on, you know, how we can repurpose some of that vacant office space in Tyson's.

[00:26:27] Because I think if we, a few years ago, we're talking about the peak of the pandemic, you know, we really didn't know long term what that was going to look like. I think all of us are concerned that, you know, we've had some vacancy issues, maybe rent's being paid, but vacancy issues now for quite a while in certain pockets of Tyson's.

[00:26:47] And, you know, we don't want those vacant, in most cases, antiquated, more suburban-scaled office components to hinder us from some of the other redevelopment and some of the connecting of the sidewalk piece that's in here. So I really hope a big focus is on that, which is kind of a new element.

[00:27:06] Certainly pre-2019, we wouldn't have been talking as much about that. So I think that's an important thing to have on the table. And then also how this organization can work with our Department of Housing on the affordable housing initiatives and their partnerships with the private sector and nonprofits, but then on the repurposing side, you know, how you're going to work vis-a-vis with our economic development authority and how those roles are going to be distinguished or augment each other so that we can have success in Tyson's.

[00:27:38] I don't know if that down in the weeds too far in terms of your, you know, strategic planning initiative, but I don't want us to operate in total isolation, and I know we have never done that in terms of the other offices in the county and the support that they can provide.

[00:27:55] And so maybe you can help me understand a little bit how we go through the strategic planning exercise. How are there county agencies that can be vital to the success of Tyson's are going to be woven into that process? I certainly agree with your assessment of the office market.

[00:28:14] But on a relative basis, Tyson's and Fairfax have done better than the region. So I think that's the good news for you. However, it's still not back to what it was before. And the vacancies have risen up to 20 percent at the moment. But it was just three or four years ago, it was 15.

[00:28:30] And there's been some new product that came online, which has affected that in the short run. But the use of office in terms of the visitation is about 78% what it was back in 2019. So that's moving forward. The second thing I'd observe, and you've hit it exactly right, while we're focusing on residential development, that's clearly the market that's moving, and I think retail is moving as well.

[00:28:50] The lesson that's being learned everywhere is that if you create a livable place where people have residential, that that actually helps the office market. So there's a two-fold benefit here of really concentrating on the residential side. But at the same time, I think we do have to work in conjunction with the Economic Initiatives Department and the EDA to look at the kind of businesses that are growing and what we can do to make it more attractive to them.

[00:29:13] So you've hit the highlights, and I think you've added one other sort of chore for us, and I think that will emerge in the strategic planning process, which is what do you do with the older buildings, some of which are not performing well, and how do we address Those are complex issues, as you well know, but I think it's something we can take on at least to get ourselves up to the best that we can learn from around the country.

[00:29:37] Yeah, I think the only thing I would add is the strategic plan is coming out at the right time, not only for the organization, but I think as we see, you know, on the office front, you know, people starting to come back to offices, you know, more mandates from some of the larger corporations within Tyson's with their back-to-work plan as well.

[00:29:53] The strategic plan is set up so that we are, from one side, we are using data-driven analytics to help answer some of the questions that we have. On the other side, we are putting together these strategic groups that are boots on the ground, right? Individuals that have been in the office, in the residential housing markets.

[00:30:11] And we're merging those two together to support what we have anecdotally seen in addition to what the data is telling us as well. I think that all coincides with, you know, having Katie on board as well and starting to steer the direction of that strategic plan with an opportunity to really kind of focus, refocus back with all the organizations within Fairfax County to share that data and really determine where we might have holes in that as well.

[00:30:36] I was just also going to speak to the chairman's question about the relationship with departments here, because I think that's going to be an incredibly important role for the TCA. One of the assets that an organization like the TCA can provide is that it is a third party, neither government nor private.

[00:30:52] And with the interface with county staff, there are going to be polls or areas that the TCA can hopefully help fill that county staff, for reasons of protocols or scope or any other reason, are not able to do. And I think, particularly, I'll just give one specific example with regard to housing and planning, as well as economic initiatives.

[00:31:12] I've had a conversation ongoing with a few of you all, beginning with Supervisor Alcorn, actually, about the parking reimagined study. Having seen some things similar, the biggest challenges are often at the level of matchmaking between developers, about whether that type of parking arrangement can help.

[00:31:30] And we know that parking is a huge driver of the cost of redevelopment and sometimes a barrier. And so is there an opportunity, I believe there is, for the TCA to help bring those private interests together, to talk about some of the specifics, to share those in turn with county staff, to understand what the barriers are and what the opportunities might be in solving something tactical like that.

[00:31:49] We could be supporting not only the economic competitiveness of Tyson's housing and planning goals, but also goals for things like affordable housing. Again, parking being one of the biggest challenges to the creation of committed affordable units as well. So I share that as sort of this third place, third identity that I think the TCA can really add value relative to the relationship with county staff.

[00:32:08] That's great. And one quick question and then a comment and then I promise I'm done. On the building the Tyson's database, which you mentioned on page 24, tell me more about what we're looking for in terms of the database. Is this just an office database?

[00:32:24] Is this a database of all land uses, of population? What is the Tyson's database? I think it's intended to be comprehensive. We'll actually be building on things like the Tyson Tracker and work EDA does, but I think augmenting it in some way, shape, or form with the idea that for marketing and promotion purposes, someone can come at least come to that spot. In some cases, we'll have information that's relative, but we can direct them to other sources. But the idea is to have that source of information in sort of one place at least, and then we can access it to other spots.

[00:32:55] Okay. I think it's really important to transfer that into marketing, as you just said. I honestly think even the people that live in this county and region have no idea the numbers in Tyson's and we're just getting going. And I think telling that story is going to be really important, not only for marketing the county, but for marketing Tyson's. I mean, it's almost a well-kept secret in a lot of ways.

[00:33:17] I don't think outside of people who market office space, I don't think a lot of people understand how big Tyson's is, how instrumental it is, how important it is to the county, but how it's become a regional magnet for so much success. And so I think that's an important part. And I just wanted to say in closing, I think Katie is absolutely the right person at the right time.

[00:33:38] So congratulations on going through an exhaustive process to find the next director. Many of us have worked with her in different capacities, and I think brings all the right things to the table. And we're looking forward to working with her for a lot of years to come, but also want to thank you for all of your work to get us to this point, because I think we're at a launch point, and that's really exciting.

[00:34:02] So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Next, I'm going to call on Supervisor Palczyk, who I just want to say provided a significant amount of leadership in getting us to this point. uh her and her office uh i know joe uh provides support and uh we are indebted to you i think you've done a wonderful job so supervisor paulcher well thank you uh thank you supervisor faust and um to the chairman supervisor alcorn uh to all my colleagues for believing in this to rich and

[00:34:36] josh and rebecca and evans getting the love fest this morning because i think um what's critical here is looking back, right? The county before my time under former chairs and supervisors and representatives and Supervisor Alcorn and Barbara and others who helped create the Tyson's Comprehensive Plan, it really designed, I think, an excellent built environment, right? It really focused on the physical build out. What would it look like? What would in its final phase be there to help support the entire community and bring in the goals of the community.

[00:35:14] And I think that's moving along really well. And I did want to put in a plug for the Tyson's tracker. If anyone here has not had the opportunity to look at it, and I know Susie Batista and her team have done incredible work, the one pager I take to meetings, and everyone loves it.

[00:35:30] It's an excellent start, I think, to what the chairman was saying of knowing what's really happening in Tyson's, what's being built, what has been built, what is planned to be built, and what is still in the works and needed. And so on that physical side, I think that is incredible. I think part of what is excellent here and part of why it was, I think, key to bring in an expert from neighborhood community services to help think about the future and our economic initiatives committee is really about the people and about the small and large and medium businesses and everything that helps make this a wonderful community.

[00:36:08] So in addition to what was shared, you know, I loved on a slide six and seven, the things even I'm learning every day, but I think really pointing out the diversity, the economic diversity of Tysons. I think we all hear Tysons or we hear McLean or we hear Oakton or we hear Falls Church or Alexander or Annandale.

[00:36:26] We have these preconceived notions of who lives there and what does the community look like and what do the businesses look like. And I think every single day we realize that we call it, whether hyper-local or even micro-local level, every community is quite complex.

[00:36:44] And so I do think that, as was mentioned, you've created here a model. But I think in the best way of not saying, this is the model we're going to take everywhere. But what are the questions that we ask? What are we looking for? What is working well?

[00:37:00] Who lives here? Who works here? Who commutes here? what opportunities are available, and what's missing. What are those physical missing links, whether they're physically those sidewalks, or those not physical links, whether they be economic opportunities, schools, access, and the family.

[00:37:22] So and looking at slide 7, 52% female. So absolutely, I think you made the right choice in your first full-time CEO. Now, Rich has left us in very, very good hands. We'll call him the godfather of the Tysons.

[00:37:42] But I know you brought in your experience from so many communities. And I think what was mentioned before is that there isn't one model, I do think. And you looked everywhere. I looked everywhere. We read all the books. We looked at all the communities. And there wasn't something like Tysons anywhere in the world, right?

[00:38:00] And so I think the hope is that we've been able to find all the best parts, bring them in. And I think what was mentioned before that's critical here is that, and also I want to commend you and the private sector. I'm looking at you, Josh, representing the private sector to really trust.

[00:38:17] I know there's sometimes hesitancy to say someone coming from the public sector is going to know how to do this the right way. And I think it was mentioned, and as we heard Katie say, it really is that kind of that in between, that secret sauce of how do you get the right collaboration and coordination and build upon what the public and private sector and the residents and the community are able to do together.

[00:38:42] So I'm super excited. I do agree. It wasn't always easy getting to this point, and we've had some difficult conversations, but I agree with what was shared by the chairman, both chairmen, that already what we're seeing is even above and beyond, right, what I imagined.

[00:39:01] And then just finally looking at not just what you've accomplished, but those program activities on slide 16, those four areas that you as a team have decided to focus on. I think communications are branding your way along the way.

[00:39:18] You've got Karen's team and all that support doing excellent work. We know the place making, place management are coming along, and some people are already doing that independently. And I think what TCA has already been able to do is to bring together some of those communities like the borough, the mall, Cap One, and others who are already doing some of this and help coordinate and elevate and help us know and share out what is happening in the community.

[00:39:45] and then the other big ones that we need to focus on transportation and mobility i know i'm excited about brt7 coming to physically connect tyson's through the whole county down to alexandria and i think that's going to be a game changer and i think the tca is going to be critical and i know katie not only was chair for one year but twice she was so excellent on the mvtc that uh she was lucky enough to have her chairmanship extended another year And being able to, you know, I think there are benefits to being such a large county, but then there are the challenges of how do you focus, right, specifically on a community.

[00:40:23] And I think that's what TCA is helping us understand how to do in other parts of Fairfax. And then finally, the research and business support. Absolutely, right. And I think that's the partnerships with Rebecca's office, with the EDA, with our county staff of, you know, how do we ensure that that ability to support the local and the larger community and the economic initiatives are happening not just everywhere, but in every part, and what makes sense?

[00:40:52] And then I guess finally my question, it really is thinking about what was mentioned on the office market and residential, and it's interesting to hear what you're saying, is I'm seeing cases come along, and we're seeing, yes, the resident, how does the residential bring about changing maybe we're looking at an office but also honing down we say office right but I guess I don't know if we've started to do some research on what does it mean number one is the type of office building whether it's you know the trophy the class a b or c um and then how they're designed so I think you

[00:41:29] know like the Tyson's Corner Center has shown a unique I think way to look at office that is that has been very successful the borough is looking at a different way to look office that has been successful, I believe both of those are very close to 100% full, as opposed to some of our other areas. So I guess that's, for me, it's that super, super within Tyson's, even honing down at the more microscopic level of what's working as we look at office and beyond. It's, I don't know, something you've already started to look at or something to continue to research.

[00:42:01] You know, I think that's a great suggestion that we will take into mind. Again, we have some people on the ground that are sharing some of those anecdotes already, and it is interesting to see what is working and what is not working as well, and we intend to pull all that together. So, thank you.

[00:42:17] Absolutely. Excellent work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for everything you're doing, Tyson's. The father of the Tyson's plan, the man who led the effort for five years several decades ago now, two decades ago, almost.

[00:42:34] Supervisor Alcorn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I appreciate, thank you for your comments, but I appreciate all my colleagues' comments. Really good. I'm glad A number of these issues have been floated. I mean, one thing that strikes me to put this in context, I think the TCA is a really important community-level system that needs to be in place for Tyson's.

[00:42:59] Because in so many situations, we have the county up here, and then we have neighborhoods or specific projects or developments, but what's missing is that community-level layer. And that's really what this is all about. And Supervisor Palachuk, you're right.

[00:43:16] It is about people. Now we're talking about people and community and how that comes together. And it's community level. It's not just the people, but it's the infrastructure. It's the brand that you're already working on. And then ultimately, it's the community level identity for the people that live there, the people that work there and own businesses there.

[00:43:38] So there are a few things. I appreciate, Katie, very much you bringing up parking. I think particularly as we move into parking reimagine, you know, we're talking about some changes in our off-street parking requirements for new development.

[00:43:54] This is going to require, I think, a different way of looking, particularly in at least parts of Tyson's and how we do parking. It is an irony in Tyson's that we have so much, so much privately owned and utilized captive parking, yet we have very little public parking. And I think over time, there does need to be a balance. I'm not saying for commuters, but public parking for visitors to support local

[00:44:28] retail, support the folks that actually live and move around within Tyson. So I look forward to that. I think that is going to be a big part of all of our activity, collectively, over the coming coming years. And then the only other thing I'll just mention is thank you also for bringing up affordable housing. We're making some real progress with a couple of excellent projects moving forward. I expect we, well, we need more and we're still moving forward with that. I expect

[00:45:02] we'll actually see at the end of the day probably each metro station area with maybe one or two significant investments in affordable housing once we're done. So, and if you look at the long-term trajectory of Tyson's in terms of population and employment, I think that's probably what we need.

[00:45:26] So, anyway, thank you for all you're doing, and thank you to everybody who's really gotten us to where we are, and I look forward to the next steps. And welcome, Katie. I'm working way down. Ronnie? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[00:45:44] I'll say I'm really excited for Tyson's as a person who spent 24 years working in Tyson's Corner. So this is very, very exciting. I just wanted to make a couple points. One, I appreciate this analysis that you're doing, this assessment, to determine kind of what the future might be as it relates to, I think if I heard you correctly, you said office, retail, residential, hotel.

[00:46:09] Did you say industrial? I did not hear that. No, we haven't specifically looked at that supervisor, but certainly something that we could add into our analysis. I think, and I'll be frank here, this is a point that we raised during the review of the Tysons plan, that we do need to think about industrial in Tysons.

[00:46:32] I mean, I'm not saying that we want to have, you know, smokestacks, but clearly there are opportunities for automobile repair, dry cleaning, And other sorts of uses that we would say might fit in more of that industrial designation. So I would argue that that's something that we should certainly take a look at as well.

[00:46:52] Second, I wanted to make a couple points, and I appreciate slide five, but I'm going to be frank here, and I think this is my economic development self coming out again, looking at the commercial base. We had no percentages.

[00:47:07] I mean, I think Tyson's, as we think about the percentage of office relative to the county's market, it is so significant, you know, almost 28 million square feet. And then being able to see what that percentage is as a total of the county's inventory, I think, is significant.

[00:47:28] And then I noticed this percent that you captured on the retail revenue. I was thinking in my own head, what does that mean on the commercial revenue tax base? So just having a sense of kind of what that means as well. So and then the last point I'll make is I really did not anticipate when I was looking at slide 8, just seeing the percentages for the distribution of income, I would have not thought that that was the case on the lower ends of it.

[00:47:59] So this is really important that we try to maintain those economics and income distributions over time. And I appreciate the work that you've talked about. And again, going to the point about the affordable housing, I think that's going to be critical and key to helping us do that.

[00:48:20] But just thinking about how we think about the inclusion, and I think if I heard you, Josh, you added that as one of your points on the slide, and I noticed that. So making sure that we address inclusion as well.

[00:48:37] So I just wanted to say I appreciate all the work you're doing with those couple of caveats and look forward to seeing the assessment and the strategic plan and working to see how the work that you do here in Tyson's might have applicability in my district.

[00:48:57] And we've talked about this before, and I think Evan, when he presented this originally, this was one of the points I raised, is like how do we capture and bring some of those elements into other markets? So thinking about the Springfield area and thinking about the Richmond Highway Corridor, I think there are opportunities for us to take some of those lessons and repackage them and use them in these other markets.

[00:49:20] So I'm looking forward to that as well. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Gross. Thank you. I'm reflecting that Tyson's today is a whole lot different than Tyson's was when I joined this board. And every time I go to McLean Hilton or whatever for an event, I'm just amazed at how, you know, every time I go, it seems like there's another tall building.

[00:49:44] It's really been remarkable. But I must admit that even back then, there was a measure of Tyson's fatigue, and I still have Tyson's fatigue. We know that it is extremely important to our county's economic growth.

[00:50:06] Tyson's, we determined that a long time ago. I'm not disputing that. But I also am wondering, you know, it hasn't grown quite as fast as perhaps we would have thought it would be if we've only gone from 15,000 10 years ago, 12 years ago to 30,000. And I think we anticipated that it would be faster. But I certainly think we will still hit that goal of 100,000, but it will not be as fast as we had thought it would be. Not always because of something at Tyson's. A lot of times it's other things that are going on. But I wanted to ask you

[00:50:45] um, what I've seen with various entities over time, when the county puts money in to get them started, there's sometimes it is an expectation that the county will continue to sort of bail them out. And so, um, but, and, and we've always wanted to make sure that entities that we're funding, you know, go out and raise some of their own money. So it's not just a county agency with a different name. So you've had the $2.5 million for the eight-month startup. Can you give me a

[00:51:19] little bit of a sense of where you want to go now with garnering support, not just from the county, leveraging what the county has contributed to really make it much more robust? Because this really needs to be something that ultimately there can still be a partnership, but it shouldn't be funded by the county yes thank you supervisor gross um maybe two ways uh to answer that question initially one is uh we've we've had initial conversations about using transportation funds as well specifically for transportation initiatives within tyson's um having said that i mean the

[00:51:57] conversation has gone back to going through the strategic plan and trying to identify where those gaps are and where and where we need to spend some of those funds if available right um so i think that's one variable as well. And another one was, and I think Katie could attest to this as well, is as we were going through this executive search, one of the main topics of conversation that we had was how does the Tyson's Partnership, as you just, I'm sorry, the Tyson's Community Alliance, as you just stated, respect what we have been received from the Board of Supervisors, but also continue to grow that, right? And whether that be through grants, whether it be through some federal

[00:52:34] funds as well. I think we are willing to think very creatively, and we have kind of impressed upon Katie and others to start to think creatively about how can we grow this platform, not only from within, respectfully, but also start to leverage some of our, you know, other resources, if you will, collectively, right? Because when we originally set this out, the allocation of funds is tremendous, But we already have our sights set on more and growth for the Tyson's Community Alliance.

[00:53:06] And I think we respectively understand that that will, in all likelihood, will not all come, you know, just from the Fairfax County Board. And so continue to grow that. And I appreciate that. And, Katie, that will be one of your challenges. It would be really nice to see what a financial plan would look like over time.

[00:53:24] Some of it would be proprietary, I'm sure. but still with partners, it really is important to see how you're going to sustain yourself and become resilient. If I could just add one other piece to this, many organizations comparable to this one actually create nonprofit corporations, subsidiary corporations, to go into that space that you've talked about.

[00:53:48] Some of the affordable housing that's now being built in Tyson's, the Arlington Housing Partnership has got a 500 unit. they're bringing capital from other sources. So I think we'll look for other structures as well as other approaches just to broaden out what the capacity is to sort of go to gaps to figure out how to make those work.

[00:54:07] So I just want to add that as a tool that, you know, as this organization unfolds, there will be other tools that it will begin to consider. I think this will be outcomes of the strategic planning process as well. Okay, good. I'm glad to hear that because you need to have a firm foundation so that if this part of it sort of goes away, this part of it will pick it up. And so I'm looking forward to seeing, you know, continuing economic and residential growth in Tyson's. We determined that years ago, that that was part of our whole plan before we had the strategic plan. Walter, you remember that. I remember Bill Leacos

[00:54:45] being on what turned out to be a very lengthy period of time. And we don't want to see it fail. We also don't want to make it sort of pie in the sky and think that it's going to be something that it's not. I can remember who was that architect who, Kali, this is 35 years ago probably, the architect who designed something for Tysons.

[00:55:07] Everybody was going, oh, my God. It's looking a little bit like that now. And lastly, Katie, welcome. Remember, you're in Fairfax County now. But I am delighted to have you on our team.

[00:55:23] Thank you. Mr. Chairman, if I could just jump in real quick. On the transportation funding Josh was talking about, Supervisor Gross, this is actually a transportation service district for Tyson. I was thinking there was a taxing district. There is, and frankly, when this got going, my support was contingent upon integrating that.

[00:55:41] I meant to mention that before, but better coordination integration of that tax district with this is really key. That makes it unique to the area. Yeah, that's right. Thank you. Okay. That was excellent. One thing I thought of as you were, as these excellent questions were being, one of the slides you might want to add is to show how we've progressed over time. I

[00:56:13] know the commercial tax base in Tyson's has increased dramatically over the past five years So that is a success story, and that helps us communicate why Tyson's is what we talk about all the time and why it is so critically important to the success of Fairfax County and its future.

[00:56:37] I mean, it's happening in Tyson's right now, so that would be very helpful. Anyway, I really appreciate everything everyone's done. It's been an interesting process going back. I don't know. When did we start? 2000?

[00:56:54] I was not on the board when this started. I remember being in the McLean Citizens Association. Yeah, that's 20 years ago. And then, yeah. That's 20 years ago. Yeah. So, anyway, good things happen to those who wait. You guys are doing a great job.

[00:57:12] We look forward to continuing to work with you, and thank you so much for everything you're doing. All right. We have another presentation, and I'm going to turn it over to Rebecca, I think, for the Fairfax Talent Up Fund presentation.

[00:57:38] We're going to turn it over to the Department of Family Services.

[00:57:57] Did you do that right? Yes. Thank you. Hi, I'm Bill Browning. I'm with the Department of Family Services. Thanks for having us back again to reintroduce the new work-based learning initiative, newly named work-based learning initiative, the Fairfax Talent Up Fund is our new name.

[00:58:21] And we are also framing this as a demonstration project. There's a lot of movement going on in the workforce space right now, movement towards skills-based hiring, and we believe that this can dramatically accelerate that movement. We'll talk about how we believe that this demonstration project can lead to some sustainable practices.

[00:58:41] But I'd like to introduce the team that's put this together. So I'm going to be joined as a presenter in the next 15 minutes with Teresa Benacasa with DEI. We've had a really strong partnership with DFS and DEI, and thrilled to work with them.

[00:58:57] And then Rebecca Maldry is the director of DEI, of course, been closely involved, as has Dr. Michael Beckett, who's the director of DFS, and my colleague Daniel McBibb, who's the assistant director of employment training, is in the back of the room.

[00:59:12] We've been working together for over a year on this. And I also just want to note a few of our partners that are here in the room demonstrating their support with their presence. One is David Hunn, the executive director of the SkillSource Group. He's been a pillar of workforce, and he's behind the pillar right now.

[00:59:28] And also, Alex Iams with the EDA is here, and they're a key partner with us. And I also want to introduce Bridget Gray with Opportunity at Work, a national nonprofit that is leading the charge in this space and a hopeful partner for us there.

[00:59:46] So with that, I'll get us started here. so you see what we're trying to do today. We're going to spend just about a little over 15 minutes with a presentation because we really want to focus more time on a dialogue so that we can field your questions and then be prepared to come back here in July with a final actual item and hopefully board approval from this conversation. So that's what we're trying to do today.

[01:00:12] Just a little bit of history. As Chairman Faust mentioned, this started over a year ago with the Economic Advisory Committee, where talent challenges had moved to the top of their agenda. And then we quickly, with some work with that group and some research identified work-based learning as a vehicle we thought that could help solve the talent problem for employers, as well as provide opportunity for workers. And that's where we've landed. So Talent Up, what it will do is match local employers with qualified but untapped talent, and we'll talk

[01:00:47] about that through paid temp-to-perm work-based learning initiatives, internships. So on the employer side in the blue boxes there, we'll talk a little bit about how we're doing internships a little differently. So what's special about it is that we'll engage employers in a different way.

[01:01:08] Usually we're order takers with employers. We'll, you know, they say, I've got these jobs and we'll help them fill that. But we're going to be engaging with employers on strategies to use skills-based hiring to help solve the talent challenge. And we'll do that by focusing on some of the hard-to-fill jobs where there's pain points out there with entry-level professional track jobs. So we're going to be focusing on where they're suffering. And we're also going to help organize the marketplace. Supervisor Palczyk called it the secret sauce of partnerships.

[01:01:41] Some I introduced here. But we've got a lot of workforce players that we'll organize to help match the talent to give them hundreds of candidates to choose from. And if we do that right, we'll address the talent bottleneck with employers, and we believe we'll create more accelerated movement towards inclusive prosperity and inclusive economic development, because we're also addressing the needs of workers.

[01:02:05] So we've got a lot of workers that have skills to do more with their jobs, and we'll teach them how to transfer those skills to some of the jobs they aspire to. What they lack is a way to gain experience, to get access to those jobs, and by work-based learning, we'll give them an opportunity to prove themselves, that they can address some of those challenges in hard-to-fill, entry-level jobs.

[01:02:32] We're focusing on gateway jobs. We borrowed this term from our friends at Opportunity at Work. These are entry-level professional jobs where there's reams of data showing that they're great springboards for future advancement and career advancement for candidates. So think about some of these entry-level jobs and how someone with retail customer service experience can transition that to professional customer service and sales jobs. And there's lots of jobs like that that you can do that are gateway jobs. And those gateway jobs will position workers for continued

[01:03:06] career advancement. Got to make sure I'm holding it right side up there. So we believe we've got kind of a once-in-a-generation opportunity to grow our own talent. This is an extraordinary moment of labor challenge, and it's not going away anytime soon. The fundamentals are there for a slow-growing labor market almost everywhere. And I'm going to try to tell this story in four data points. It's pretty complex, but I'll try to do that. So right now, we've got a survey that came out in northern Virginia. 71% of employers say it's harder to fill jobs now than it was just a few months ago or last year.

[01:03:45] And then we've got a lot of open jobs in Fairfax County. We put it at 67,000, but it goes between 60,000 and 70,000. It's pretty consistent. We have high demand with employers to fill open positions. So traditionally, the way employers fill open positions, they look for people that aren't working, that might be unemployed or in transition, or underemployed workers that are looking for a greater opportunity that have some skills, and that's a traditional unemployment figure that when you use those traditional figures, it comes up to 30,000 evenly distributed roughly between under and

[01:04:22] unemployed, and you can see that's not enough. It's not going to even fill half of the open jobs there, but also here in Fairfax County, we have 207,000 workers that are called stars. Again, opportunity at work has really promoted this. These are skilled workers skilled through alternative routes, STARS, skilled workers with potentially transferable skills that might have been overlooked because they haven't done that exact job in the past, but they've done something similar. And we have 207,000 of those in this region, more than enough to take care of those

[01:04:58] openings. And they would include also workers like overseas degree holders that are part of a refugee population that's moving in that we would consider as part of that group as well. So the gaps in the workforce system, we get a lot of questions about this crazy workforce system that's got so many different players, and we've got two gaps we're trying to address with this initiative.

[01:05:22] One is in the system itself. If you look at the sort of top end of the education and skills ladder, you've got large companies that can really create their own pipelines, and they've often got pricing power in the labor market to outbid other employers for talent.

[01:05:40] And you've got institutions like Go Virginia that's also focused on highly educated university degree graduates. And then the universities themselves are providing lots of support. So at the high end, you've got a lot of support. And at the lower end, there's so many jobs out there that are entry level, minimum wage, or a little above jobs that people can access without support.

[01:06:00] So it's the missing middle that we're looking at. We're looking at middle-skilled jobs that require some skills beyond high school, but perhaps not a college degree. And we're also looking at some of those mid-sized employers that don't have some of the advantages large employers have that we think are going to have a high take-up rate with this.

[01:06:20] So that's what we're calling the missing middle here. It's a similar gap in work-based learning. We know the ecosystem because we do a lot of these programs. And the gap, you've got a lot of folks at the university level, again, that get university internships associated with those universities and four-year college students.

[01:06:38] And then a lot at the youth space and high school and summer employment programs like what we're doing right now in the summer. And again, it's that missing middle, those experienced workers that have some experience, but they're not in college and they're not high school students. and there is a significant lack of work-based learning opportunities for people in that middle.

[01:06:59] So those are the two missing middle pieces that we're hoping that this can sort of address. So we're really beginning with employers, which is another change. Usually we start work-based learning with the job seekers. We're now, with this, starting with employers, and we believe we have a very strong value proposition.

[01:07:17] position, you can see there on the screen the kind of benefits that we can offer to employers to attract them to participate in this. And I'll just mention one thing on the increasing the pool of qualified applicants by up to 50 percent. That figure is really a function of the 60-some percent of workers in our region that have a university degree versus 90-some percent that have high school. That's a 50 percent increase in the potential talent pool that we can bring to them with this skills-based hiring.

[01:07:49] So with that, I'll turn it over to my colleague, Teresa Benacosta, to tell you how it works. - Thanks, Bill. Thank you, supervisors, for listening to our presentation today. We're happy to tell you a little bit. Since we met with you in September, we have been doing planning, essentially, Talent Up.

[01:08:06] We have a model here of how it works. This diagram, first to launch the program, the SkillSource Group with its partner network, We'll promote the TalentUp opportunity to local employers with an initial focus on small to mid-sized businesses.

[01:08:22] We've already laid the groundwork with our multiple partners, including EDA's Talent Initiative, to begin this outreach. Second, we plan to advise employers. We expect to advise employers in three ways. We will assist them in establishing a work-based learning internship that meets their needs and our requirements.

[01:08:40] We're going to advise them on more inclusive hiring practices and how they can implement that to consider broader talent pools within our community. And where it's efficient, we'll work with employers in cohorts that are focused on similar occupations and pain points. Third, we plan to match.

[01:08:57] We plan to match. We will simultaneously, when we're working with employers, we'll start to work with our talent partners to identify candidates for these jobs and these opportunities. Essentially, employers in this program will be the selectors. They will interview and select the candidate of their choice, and the work doesn't really stop there.

[01:09:18] In order to continue to make sure our workers are successful and our employers are implementing best practice, we're going to work with both sides through job coaching and advising throughout the course of the internship. This is a requested use for ARPA funds, so we have outlined some basic eligibility criteria that align with ARPA guidelines.

[01:09:41] We will be looking to – employers that would like to participate will be based in Fairfax County. They're going to need to demonstrate through a checklist and our communication with them that they're ready to invest in this opportunity. They're going to devote the management required to provide a quality work-based learning internship.

[01:10:02] We have some priorities for the kind of employers we're trying to seek, though. We'd like to focus on those targeted sectors that offer these gateway jobs. We'd like to work with employers that have active job openings, job openings that pay $20 an hour or more. So that is kind of our initial focus out of the gate with who we're trying to recruit for this program.

[01:10:21] On the job seeker side, they also will need to be Fairfax County residents. And again, using ARPA, workers will be like a primary beneficiary of these funds. So we will be looking to ARPA guidelines that ARPA places a lot of emphasis on helping workers who may have been impacted with job losses in the pandemic, are underemployed, or seeking greater economic mobility.

[01:10:46] And, of course, our interns will be applying, and they'll have to demonstrate their skills. This is a little bit more detail. We've spent some time talking about this idea of who and how do we navigate the employer market to make a good match that will get good value out of this program.

[01:11:06] And we've worked with our EDA partners to develop some of this has come to a snapshot of job openings in the Fairfax County. Essentially, these are what we're calling gateway jobs, as Bill indicated. These are jobs that are often pathways to become destination, next-level destination jobs.

[01:11:23] With these experiences, workers can move into higher-paying jobs, and that is our initial focus. Who might be ready? Well, we've had some conversations. We had a conversation with NOVA last week who told us a little bit about a group that could be ready for this. They have about 80 students, adults, age 30 over, as they've described it, who have recently completed a non-credit medical assistant training program at NOVA.

[01:11:50] And these folks are looking for both an employment opportunity as well as some of them have their eye on higher allied health professions. But they need to work while they're working through that achievement. This kind of talent up could be placed right there that maybe it could fill a gap in their experience to jumpstart their careers in these economic mobility.

[01:12:12] We've also continued to look at the data on Glassdoor shows that a major hospital in our area has over 30 Tech 1, Clinical Tech 1 positions at about $23 an hour. But they also have 17 Clinical Tech 2 positions at $30 an hour.

[01:12:29] So this is how we're sort of navigating this to try to see where we can put the talent up value right where it could make a difference. Transitions are also very much possible at IT. Our colleagues at Opportunity to Work have showed that skilled workers can advance from these entry-level computer jobs to higher-paying jobs like a computer support specialist at $35 an hour, or maybe even assistance animalist at $45 an hour, and so on, depending on what the worker can do from that point.

[01:13:01] We have a lot of partners. You know the partners. You would probably be recommending these partners, and we're excited to work with them. We've had conversations with all of the groups up there already, and they're pretty much ready to go, including, of course, as we've mentioned multiple times, our chambers.

[01:13:17] We expect to actively recruit and offer this opportunity to our chambers. EDA will market our opportunity. We expect to identify talent through the partners you would expect, our career centers, NOVA, FCPSAs, nonprofits that already are working with NCS, and our WISH Center.

[01:13:38] We have a plan to get started right away. we're going to just go ahead and do a launch event in the fall with board approval. We'll start doing events with workers to communicate. We'll do some one-to-one engagement. And because at DEI, we're going to launch the Thrive program that's really focused on small business. We'll do cross-referral and let them know about this opportunity if it works for them. This is the budget that we are proposing. We are requesting $2.5 million in ARPA funding. This program's Time frame will run from July 2023 through December of 2024.

[01:14:12] Activity will go beyond that, but that's essentially the expenditure time. We have outlined here how we expect by the components of the program, how we expect to allot the funds. And this is to demonstrate that there's going to be capacity building, employer outreach, job seeker identification and screening activities, continuation with employer advising throughout.

[01:14:34] And, of course, data and analytics to track economic mobility and how employers are responding. The majority of the funds will go for the actual incentives for the wages for the workers, at least a minimum of 55%. A typical internship may result in a worker earning wages of $8,400 for a 12-week internship at $20 an hour or more.

[01:15:01] We've also spent a lot of work thinking how are we going to track success in this program. This is really just a snapshot of the kind of metrics we might collect. For us, employer engagement is a real significant activity here, so we're going to put out some projected, we envision that we're going to need at least 500 employers to be made substantially aware of the program.

[01:15:26] A subset of those, up to 300 to 200, may be initially interested, really want to engage, apply to the website, get engaged, get some advisement. Of that group, We're looking to place about 185 job seekers in actual internships in the time frame that we have.

[01:15:44] And then we also expect to do tracking of what we've been talking about. Are employers actually implementing any inclusive hiring practices that they might be doing? And we expect our workers to get jobs, either temp to perm, conversions of these opportunities, or because we are working and we have the privilege of working with the workforce system, they're confident that they are going to be able to place them in another job, most of the workers.

[01:16:14] We will track an economic mobility, but it's pretty realistic to expect that with this program, people will see wage gains, and our workforce partners have indicated short-term they could be up to 20%. So I'm just going to breathe for a second and say why I think, you know, why this program kind of pulled together pieces.

[01:16:43] You know, this work we've received, I've worked on a lot of programs in the county and I've never seen one that keeps signaling to kind of a certain direction. The EAC recommendations, if you look back on those, they kind of point to elements of talent up.

[01:16:58] Our conversations with employers, large ones and small, have said that this kind of an opportunity might make sense for them. We've heard stories from our workers, from our nonprofit network through NCS, of actual why something like this can make a difference.

[01:17:15] Why mentoring, coaching, one-to-one contact, experience is the thing that helps people get from A to B. So all I'm trying to say is that there is a lot that pointed us in this direction. It might seem like other things, but it really quite is not.

[01:17:32] And I think the other thing is that the county, I also had the privilege of working on the county strategic plan, and I just need to say that this opportunity lifts specifically for county goals to talk about doing incentives for employers to connect them with talent.

[01:17:49] It talks about increasing the supply of work-based learning opportunities, and it also talks about building the work capacities of our workforce for economically disadvantaged folks. It also, this program, I'm the equity lead in my department, and I can tell you this program squarely addresses equity and recommendations in the chairman's task force. Because of the population we're serving, we expect people of color are more disproportionately impacted in the pandemic. So right there, we're sort of moving along. But it's also about innovation.

[01:18:24] Bottom line, we need to innovate here to change those numbers, and this program just provides a platform to do that. And thirdly, building capacity. I think that we have several points we want to make about that you might see this money and think, well, what's going to happen afterwards?

[01:18:44] The team that you see here plans to carry forward a lot of the program capacity forward in the model that we do. So, TalentUp partners and employers can continue to use the Opportunity at Work platform in their work. Employers, we expect, will become more knowledgeable about this idea of inclusive hiring.

[01:19:06] The public workforce system will have more strategic, direct connections with business through this program. And some employers will elect, we recognize wages, will have to use their own wages if they want to adopt this. I'm sorry, their own resources for wages, so it's not going to be constantly just one pool of funds, and the public workforce has some limited opportunities that they might be able to continue to provide as well.

[01:19:34] So that is pretty much the overview, and thank you so much for your opportunity to listen, and we'll take any feedback from the board. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. The sustainability issue is going to be critical.

[01:19:54] Clearly, this meets the requirements of the ARPA funding, but that money is going to be exhausted at some point. Your plan for sustainability is?

[01:20:10] Good morning. Michael Beck is with the Department of Family Services. So once the ARPA funds are exhausted, the Virginia Career Works Northern Region, our Workforce Development Board, of which I am a member, and the SkillSource Group are prepared to utilize some of our Federal Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act funds.

[01:20:27] excuse me, to continue this work-based learning effort. The federal funding will support job seekers and employers throughout the Northern Virginia region. Specifically, we are required to spend at least 40% of our allocation on job seeker training each year. So there's some of this that's already built into what we're doing.

[01:20:46] And to continue the work-based learning effort, we'll meet the WIOA spending requirement by continuing this work. And while funding levels can vary each year, the Northern Virginia, our Workforce Development Board envisions somewhere between at least $250,000 to $400,000 a year that it would be able to contribute to continue this work going forward, really looking at fiscal years 25 and 26.

[01:21:14] We believe that a positive experience, good outcomes with this particular program would allow us to leverage philanthropic support, grant funds, and additional state funds as long as the outcomes are exactly what we are anticipating. The governor as well as the Virginia Secretary of Labor have spoken extensively about opportunities provided through work-based learning strategies.

[01:21:37] And we actually had an opportunity to meet with the BDSS commissioner, as well as a deputy secretary who's come to Fairfax to meet with the DFS team about how innovative our structure is. And so we know that our state partners are looking at Fairfax, and we have an opportunity to really be a model that they would want to support and continue.

[01:21:58] Great answer. I mean, you were right. Good job. I'm going to ask the chairman if he had any comments. Yeah, thank you. Well, actually, the question you just asked was going to be one of the questions that I asked, and that is a great answer, because we do need to think about this long-term.

[01:22:18] This can't be something we do for a short period of time and then just walk away from, and so the long-term piece is important. A couple things. One, I didn't see the Northern Virginia Technology Council on here, and I would suggest adding them as one of the groups that you partner with.

[01:22:36] And the reason why I say that is a few weeks ago, I was at an event where they launched their Aim High Champions internship program, specifically with Nova, GMU, other partners, and trying to work to find ways for people who are even at the high school level to engage in internships with some of the technology companies in and around Fairfax County.

[01:23:02] Most specifically, they had a list of employers, dozens of them, who have signed up to participate in this program. And so they would be obvious companies, I would think, that if they're willing to participate in a program with people in that age bracket, certainly would be willing to participate in a program like the one that you're mentioning.

[01:23:20] So I would just, you know, I would think reaching out to them would be important. The one thing I didn't see in here, and maybe I missed it somewhere, was a specific timeline or milestones that you're looking to achieve. I know that you've done some outreach already to both employers and, I guess, potentially employees, but I'm not sure where we are in terms of the overall timeline of the program.

[01:23:45] And if you were being asked today, you know, when do you think you would have something that would be up live and working, what would be the time frame that we would expect on that? And then related to that, how are we going to get some updates on progress that's being made?

[01:24:01] Is there going to be somewhere where we can go and kind of see some metrics and some other updates as the process evolves? That's a great question. So I'll get started, and hopefully I'll have wiser colleagues that can correct me. So as far as the timeline, we're anticipating an early fall launch, like around the September timeframe with a kickoff event and an announcement that would really get it started.

[01:24:24] It takes a little time to hire and build a website and all that kind of stuff. And we've done some thinking about milestones along the way. And we'll have monthly reporting and meetings, you know, with SkillSource as the program operator and the DEI-DFS team and possibly Opportunity at Work.

[01:24:44] And we expect that we'll be evolving that a bit. So the marketplace is going to respond in some ways that are probably going to surprise us. And so we need to be ready to adapt, and we do see this as being market responsive in the year and a half that we're here. So, and we would anticipate that we can give reports back maybe after the first quarter would be a time frame where we'd have some initial data that we could look at that would be a starting point.

[01:25:12] Others? Thank you for that question, Chairman McKay. And I look forward to the opportunity to provide you with a more clear milestone, but I would say our team is very aware that we have a short timeframe to launch this project. We, as Bill said, I would think of this almost in quarters, you know, we only have that many more months. So I think after you give us about, you know, a quarter to get organized and get the launch out, I don't see why we couldn't move forward to, you know, having these internships posted for those employers that are ready to go. I envision us working already with our talent partners tomorrow to start figuring

[01:25:50] out a pipeline but see we have the privilege we have the opportunity to work with the ssg and the northern virginia um career works um that really has a foundation for how to do this work already so it's not like a brand new build for us um in terms of the infrastructure that we have so um i we will absolutely provide the board with clear milestones soon as far as quarterly and and that's And I think we will be operational, you know, by the end of the first quarter of operations for this.

[01:26:23] Okay. And I appreciate that because, you know, obviously putting public money in, it's ARPA money. And I will say I do think this is a great use of some of the ARPA money. I mean, this is the type of thing that builds resilience. You know, if you can help some folks move into these jobs, not only do we help our employers, we help those individuals, but it's a resilience thing where their lives can change dramatically for the better.

[01:26:48] I mean, they can afford to live here. And so I do think this is exactly the type of longer-range things that some of those ARPA funds envision being able to build a more sustainable, longer-term economy and community. And so I absolutely support that.

[01:27:05] I do think it's going to be important for us to track this, you know, what's happening. And this is kind of an unconventional space for government to be in. And so I appreciate all the other partnerships and the different organizations that you've mentioned that we are partnering with.

[01:27:20] Because while it's an unusual thing, I think it's a welcome thing where, you know, we can – this stuff matters. You know, if we're losing employers because they can't fill these jobs, that bottom line negatively affects Fairfax County's economy. So it's a space I do think we need to be in, but it's a space we need to be in with those other partners helping us along the way.

[01:27:42] And I think you will find a lot of employers that will want to participate in this and certainly look forward to the metrics as we move along on this of what's actually happening with this. And frankly, the criteria that's here is great, and identifying kind of that missing middle, I think, is the right thing to do.

[01:28:00] I think what we might find over time is that evolves. And so I think we need to maintain some flexibility for following what happens here and seeing where we're having success and being open to maybe taking another look at some of the criteria if we see something emerge that surprises us.

[01:28:17] So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'll try to be brief. I know there's not a lot of time. I love this. Following up on the chairman's comments, I think it really sticks out to me is, and I love that you have DFS next to DEI, right?

[01:28:35] It really truly is about creating that inclusive economy, access, and networking of our existing residents. Because as we know, trying to move here and live here if you don't already live here and recruit employees is huge. So I love that you're doing that. I know I could only have paid internships, and I know it's so important to be able to create that gateway.

[01:28:57] I think you have a lot of great partners and skills that are being targeted. I have two questions, if possible. things that I didn't see here. One of them, FCPS, you said ACE, the academies. We know we have many, many students who are accessing health sciences, IT, criminal justice, agriculture, and many other academy programs, many of whom especially in the past few years also working in order to support themselves and their families. So I think that's an area that we absolutely need to work with.

[01:29:32] And my other question is for when we're talking about the skills and developing the skills, and I love that you brought up looking at some of our refugees and very, you know, part of our, what we have that's so great here is our very global community is the, what part, have we looked at the English language skills and how many of those gaps are created by, you know, professionals who maybe just need additional support in their English literacy skills?

[01:30:00] So, that was one of the outstanding questions that I had. And we have flagged the language continuum as a challenge for a number of newcomers in our field. And, you know, we do support that in some of our other workforce programs right now.

[01:30:17] And that could be a source of talent, people coming out of that, that have made some gains there. So, we would keep that in mind. And with FCPS and the academies, we're familiar with them, have contacts there. And, you know, they could be part of our list, too. We didn't attempt to exclude people with our initial list.

[01:30:39] And I know groups like the English Empowerment Center and others are already trying to do some overlap, so I think anything we can do to help see how that's working and build off of it would be awesome. I just want to apologize to those who are here for the personnel committee meeting. We'll be wrapping up shortly. Supervisor Paul, or I'm sorry, Supervisor Walkinshaw.

[01:31:01] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And maybe this could go in the nip, but I would love to see in the 67,000 openings the breakdown of where those are kind of along the skill and wage spectrum. It looks like you have some of that data because you're focused on the middle that's laid out in slide nine.

[01:31:20] But we typically hear about, I think, those who are probably on the higher end of that scale, right, cyber jobs, jobs that require clearance. But obviously there's a spectrum, and I'd love to know what percentage are where. I'll just, you know, on the sustainability question, and Mr. Beckett's was impressively prepared for that.

[01:31:42] I think, I mean, it's great to have other funding sources lined up. I think, for me, the path to sustainability for this kind of program is getting the businesses to start buying in. And that's the model everywhere else in the world.

[01:32:01] In every other developed economy, that's the model, that it's a partnership between industry, businesses, and government. And there's great research from the EU that for businesses that invest in work-based learning, they recoup that investment in a year.

[01:32:17] Now, you know, we have a different kind of labor market here. Businesses haven't traditionally in the United States have not traditionally had to compete for workforce because it's a growing economy and less restrictive immigration policies etc etc but that that's probably changing on a macroeconomic level so they're going to have to compete so I think one thing we need to build into this from the beginning is tracking the data determining what level of investment can be recouped over x amount of time and convincing our business partners that moving

[01:32:55] forward, it becomes a partnership between the government and them, right? And what do they need in terms of the return on investment for that to net out? So can this be a demonstration to businesses that it's worth investing in this and worth taking a little bit of a risk? My sense is right now, because it is not the norm and they don't know what kind of investment, what the timeline to recoup the investment would be. It doesn't make sense to take the risk. So for me, that's sustainability. I know we can always be smart and come up with another funding

[01:33:34] source, but to make it sustainable, it's got to be a partnership long-term. Thank you. Supervisor Smith. Thank you. Kind of following up in a way with that is what skin does the employer have in the game. I take it the wages are going to be totally paid by ARPA funds. Is there any commitment from the employers? What commitment do they have as part of this process? So we are asking them to

[01:34:10] do things differently. So we're making a request for them to consider a different form of hiring that they might associate with higher level of risk. So we've got a way to manage that. And we are looking for the employers to support and signal that they're willing to support work-based placements there.

[01:34:26] And so that's a pretty significant investment, too. And then we'll be planting that seed for future investments if this works, that this would be coming more from them. So I would take it part of the evaluation as you do this. You're going to keep track of which employers are just using interns, and then we don't want to see a churn there that they keep trying different interns, but they're not providing any jobs.

[01:34:51] Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll go quickly. I really am excited about this program. I think this is going to be a great way to help move a number of folks into the middle class. So this is kind of strategic. So the 185 internships that you're going to be providing over the course of this program, do you have a thought in terms of geography? Is it going to be countywide or are you thinking about starting in sort of a pilot area? I'm just trying to get a sense of what's the thought about the scope and the geography for the program first, and then I'll have a second

[01:35:31] question after that. We're going to cast a broad net. I think we have a very short amount of time to use the resources that are made available to us because of the time constraints on ARPA, and so we're going to have to go sort of much broader than just a specific geographic region.

[01:35:49] Okay, so the follow-up then will be appropriate. So thinking about if someone lives in Region 1 and the job is in, I don't know, Region 5 or 4, how do we address if they have, you know, wraparound service needs? They need help with transportation.

[01:36:06] They need help with some other service and assistance. How do we address that? We can definitely provide sort of a lot more context. I just wanted to try to respect time. But the goal would be to also make sure that they're connected to other services, not just this, that could provide some of those rep services that are also available through some community partners as well as the Department of Family Services.

[01:36:30] Okay. And then last, if I could, is on the opportunity youth, thinking about the kids that we've been talking about and skipped for now almost a year and a half plus. How do we envision this program connecting and servicing some of those 9,200 kids?

[01:36:49] so quickly, that the age range for this program is 18 and older. So there's a subset of those young people who would be included in this opportunity. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Herrick. Yeah, I'll be quick because I'm here at the end, but thanks for including NVTC.

[01:37:08] I think that is a good add. Sustainability is obviously my big concern. I think it's been pretty much addressed, and I was looking what the long-term metric is to avoid that intern churn because you don't want this as a pot of money for insurance.

[01:37:24] I assume we're going to contract with SkillSource. What percentage of that $2.5 million is the SkillSource contract? The program, SkillSource will be doing the hiring for, so some of the percentage is program capacity.

[01:37:46] The administrative piece for SkillSource will be in line with other ARPA programs, maybe a little bit higher because there's wage -- there's -- they have to pay the wages for the workers. It's a little bit more than a one-shot grant opportunity.

[01:38:02] So I think that the answer to that is, you know, in line with other ARPA programs, don't have a specific, but they will be doing the hiring for this program. So the 10 and 15 percent that you saw, those workers in some of that capacity will be under SkillSource.

[01:38:20] we can get back to you. And also, we're coming with an action item in July, which will have a little bit more detail on the admin costs. Okay. Assume it would have to. Okay. Thank you. Excellent. Appreciate all your hard work. I think coming forward in July is probably going to be acceptable to the board, if you would be kind enough to do that, put together something for us, our review and approval. And as we were talking, I was thinking that, you know, We don't have a significant unemployment issue, percentage-wise, but generally.

[01:39:00] But there are obviously communities where unemployment is significant. And in particular, I was saying something we don't talk about much is people with disabilities. And I hope that, you know, I know you're going to target, you know, underserved communities.

[01:39:19] specifically have a plan for how we can bring them into this program. I think it would be really important. Okay. If everyone would turn their clocks back 15 minutes. We finished on time once again.

[01:39:38] Okay. Thank you all. Unless anybody has anything else come forward. Meetings adjourned. We'll give five minutes to Jim. Yeah.

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