Tammy Westergard, GOED's senior workforce development librarian-in-residence, has been an advocate for education and workforce training for many years. She joins "Diversify Nevada" to talk about her cutting-edge program, Individual Career Mapping, which is using virtual reality training to transform workforce development -- and getting results.
Speaker 2 (00:00)
Welcome, you're listening to Diversify Nevada, a podcast produced by the Governor's Office of Economic Development. Diversify Nevada provides insightful discussion and expert analysis on the driving forces behind our state's economic, workforce and community development. I'm Tom Burns, the executive director of the Nevada Governor's Office of Economic Development.
Speaker 2 (00:20)
We're your hosts, Evan Haddad and Carli Smith.
Speaker 3 (00:22)
We are joined here today by GOED's Senior Workforce Development Librarian in Residence, Tammy Westergard. Tammy has been a tireless advocate for education for many years. Before GOED, she served as Administrator of the Nevada State Library, Archives, and Public Records Division. She has advanced job recovery, STEM learning, career credentialing, and workforce training adapted to Nevada's economic needs.
All that to say, Tammy is passionate about education and workforce development. She's a bright, shining light here at GOED and wherever else she happens to be. Tammy Westergard, welcome to our show.
Speaker 1 (00:58)
Wow! ⁓ no kidding, a bright shining light.
Speaker 2 (00:58)
What a welcome!
Speaker 3 (01:02)
What role here at GOA do you play and what division do you fall under?
Speaker 1 (01:06)
I am within the Innovation-Based Economic Development Group led by Karsten Heise. So within that group, IBED's mission is to advance innovative solutions to big problems. And that is where the Workforce Development Librarian in Residence stems from. ⁓
Speaker 2 (01:29)
Great. So how did you become a librarian?
Speaker 1 (01:32)
Well, you know, I didn't intend to be a librarian. If you polled the class of 1982 at Carson High, there is no one there that would have predicted that I'd be a librarian. I was a very loud cheerleader.
Speaker 2 (01:44)
What would they have predicted?
Speaker 1 (01:47)
They would have thought I would be in marketing like you guys.
Speaker 2 (01:50)
Well, tell us about your trajectory and your path down the library career.
Speaker 1 (01:56)
Yeah, I wanted to help people find opportunities. And when I was working in economic development in Carson City, I saw how libraries could be really powerful tools with education, obviously, it's a place of lifelong learning, and with job training. People have to know how to do things, to get hired, and to be meaningful to employers. And that realization led me to the Carson City Library, where I launched a program that helped people earn a manufacturing credential.
It was the first of its kind in the United States where people could go to the library and actually earn an industry-recognized certificate. This worked incredibly well and ⁓ folks got jobs, you know, by going to the library at places like Click Bond, which is an aerospace manufacturing enterprise here in Carson City.
Speaker 3 (02:46)
Yeah, so you've been instrumental in developing an exciting program here at GOED called Individual Career Mapping. How would you explain what ICM is to your average listener?
Speaker 1 (02:56)
Well, that is a great question because it is an acronym, right? Individual Career Mapping. We love acronyms. Right, we do. But one of the most exciting things about Individual Career Mapping and what really sets it apart is the use of virtual reality and a career readiness assessment that measures something incredibly important, a person's capacity for computational thinking.
Speaker 2 (03:23)
Let me stop you there. What does that mean, a person's capacity for computational thinking?
Speaker 1 (03:26)
It means their capacity to think in zeros and ones. So when you have an interest in and really capacity for ⁓ very refined steps and being able to think critically in very, very small steps, that signals ⁓ someone's capacity to learn to deal with machines, robots, to be able to problem solve.
To be resilient and a lifelong learner. We all have to figure things out all the time. And being a strong computational thinker is a really powerful skill set, or at least it signals lots of potential. And when we realize that about ourselves, sometimes we're surprised and it allows us to look into types of work that we didn't know existed or we certainly never thought that we had that kind of capacity for.
Speaker 2 (04:27)
Wow. And tell us about the virtual reality component of it. I've tried one of these devices and it's pretty amazing. I mean, it made me kind of woozy at first when I strapped it on my head. I know people play video games that way. And I think it's pretty amazing how you can reach people in the workforce development space using this technology. Especially in government. So can you talk about a little bit more how you're using that virtual reality component?
Speaker 1 (04:54)
Yeah, happy to talk about that. So imagine being able to step into a real workplace, not watching a video, but being actually immersed and experience a job environment, seeing the tools, experiencing the tasks, the pace of work, even before you apply. That's what these virtual reality field trips do. They give people a firsthand look at careers they have maybe never considered
and help them decide if a job is a good fit before committing the time and money to training or pursuing something that at the end of the day they're not going to be interested in. One of the best examples we have about that is people don't necessarily know that dialysis and that a dialysis technician has to deal with blood every single day and lots of people have a fear of blood.
So when they have a better understanding of that as a healthcare field and they know that it's all about blood. If that is in the line with what they can tolerate, great. And if it's not, it's really good to know right
Speaker 2 (05:58)
Wow, how realistic is that blood? mean, does it trigger that kind of reaction to people that it's strong enough that that would dissuade them from this job, do you think? Or is that something you've seen?
Speaker 1 (06:08)
It is something that we've seen and the content that we use is continuing to get more sophisticated, not every year, every month. And the publisher that we work with, Lifelike, who has put together the collection in the state of Nevada, has an incredible team of developers and 3D artists. And ⁓ how are you, Evan, with blood? Would you like to give that a go?
Speaker 2 (06:34)
I mean, I'd like to think I have a strong stomach, but who knows. So let's talk a bit more about how ICM is being used here in Nevada.
Speaker 1 (06:43)
It's making real impact across Nevada, Evan, and especially for underserved communities. Some of our active cohorts include the Domestic Violence Resource Center in Washoe County, Help of Southern Nevada, and Jackpot High School in rural Nevada. Those are just a few examples of where we're focused. But how it works is essentially after about 30 hours of investment in the process, individuals meet the halfway point through their career map.
It's a critical milestone because by this stage, they've used our interventions like exploring the world of work and in-demand careers in virtual reality, identifying key skills and abilities that they need to compete for those jobs, assessing their own capacity as a computational thinker, recognizing that all the jobs that are in demand in the state of Nevada, all across the country, all require real strong proficiency.
with science, technology, engineering, and math, or we know that as STEM skills. So that computational thinking assessment helps evaluate someone's competency with computational thinking, too many competencies. ⁓ And then what they're able to do is discover what they already know and pinpoint gaps that they need to fill.
So then from there, a participant prepares for and sits for the National Career Readiness Certificate, the NCRC, which is a nationally recognized work-ready credential. It's a big deal because it dramatically increases somebody's labor market literacy and it serves as a base layer. It's a stackable credential that provides foundational, tangible workplace skills.
Speaker 2 (08:29)
What is labor market literacy? Probably is what it sounds like, but I mean, in layman's terms, what does that look like in real life in tandem with this technology?
Speaker 1 (08:40)
Right, that's a great question. So bottom line is that just like with basic literacy, the more labor market literate aware you are, the more precise your career map might be. So when people are exploring the world of work and realizing that the jobs that they're looking at are in demand and they understand what that even means, on its face, that seems like a simple concept.
But when you understand the role that an in-demand job plays in an overall economy, that's a more sophisticated sense ability of your understanding of the world of work or your level of labor market literacy. Same thing with knowing what the key skills and abilities are to take your place in those in-demand jobs. Key skills and abilities are constantly changing and they're constantly moving because, as I was talking about before, because of AI and because of automation.
So the requirement to be a lifelong learner and to really understand the world of work at a very practical level, signaling to the individual that they constantly have to learn, ⁓ those are all elements that make up a labor market, a literate individual about the labor market.
Speaker 3 (10:00)
So how do you get involved with something like this? Do you sign up for a school? Is there a certain demographic that you're using or you're targeting?
Speaker 1 (10:07)
That's a great question. You can get involved by contacting us here at the Governor's Office of Economic Development. You can find information about this from our website. You can also go to your local public library and you can ask about individual career mapping and looking for resources to help any individual look at jobs, understand which ones are out there within our jurisdictions, within the areas, the neighborhoods that we live in.
And ⁓ because these virtual reality headsets are deployed throughout public libraries across the whole state.
Speaker 2 (10:44)
All public libraries across the state are there only in the big ones? So every public library? Did I hear you right?
Speaker 1 (10:50)
Every public library in the state of Nevada has access to career information and they use a database called the Nevada Career Explorer to ⁓ get all of the, they use a database called the Nevada Career Explorer.
Through the Nevada Career Explorer, an individual can find, through the Nevada Career Explorer, you can find Individual Career Mapping and then that begins to walk the individual through the journey. And for libraries that their headsets are not live, you can still access this content online. It's not as immersive as it is in the goggles, but it's still accessible through a computer. So every library in Nevada has internet, has computers, and has access to the Nevada Career Explorer.
Speaker 2 (11:42)
Wow.
Speaker 3 (11:42)
Gosh, that's exciting. It is. Tell us about some of the results you've seen so far. I know you love talking about Jackpot High School. And what role do envision ICM playing in the next five to ten years?
Speaker 2 (11:56)
I just love the town is named Jackpot. That's such a Nevada thing. Love it. We don't have towns called Jackpot in Massachusetts.
Speaker 1 (12:05)
I love it. I know, I do too actually. And so yes, in Jackpot, we have seen remarkable success proving its power, the Individual Career Mapping process, to transform career readiness in rural communities. So our first cohort of 10 students last year achieved a 100 % pass rate on the National Career Readiness Certificate exams.
And it demonstrated their mastery of foundational workplace skills. And what's even more exciting is that all 10 of those students showed strong results on the career readiness assessment, which was the computational assessment tool that I was talking about. So that confirmed their ability to think critically and solve problems, and then they all did really well on the NCRC.
Of those 10 students last year, three of them are juniors. They are now seniors this year and they are leading a cohort of 10 more students. So it's helping us to scale a train the trainer model and bring this process into Nevada's institutions so that they can do it themselves, essentially.
Speaker 3 (13:17)
That's great.
Speaker 2 (13:18)
I was going to ask about that because I was on that tour that you gave because you're just you're so involved in the community that you ⁓ for listeners Tammy gave this amazing barbecue and walking tour of the Capitol to congratulate these Jackpot high kids and they absolutely loved it. I mean, that's just so fantastic. Weren't some of them seniors? Did any of them go on to college? Were they all juniors at the time?
Speaker 1 (13:41)
No, they were, ⁓ seven of them were seniors and all seven of those individuals are doing really, really well. ⁓ One of them is working as an electrician. Several of them have gone on to school at the College of Southern Idaho and they're all really doing well.
Speaker 2 (13:58)
Awesome. So last question here, it's kind of a broad one. And obviously you're so passionate about education and workforce development. Why do you care about it so much? Why is that so important to you as a person? And then maybe more broadly, why is that important for our state?
Speaker 1 (14:15)
In my view, workforce development isn't just important, it's the foundation of economic development. We live in a capitalist society where opportunity is tied to economic mobility and the dignity of meaningful work solves a myriad of social challenges -- poverty, crime, homelessness, and even mental health. When people have access to good jobs that align with their skills and their potential, entire communities thrive. So I think it's so important.
And it's not just about filling jobs, it's about ensuring that people have knowledge and pathways to access jobs in a way that creates long-term growth, as I was mentioning before about being a lifelong learner. So libraries play a revolutionary role in that. They're the only institutions in our democracy where everybody, regardless of their background, has free access to information. Libraries aren't the place of the government, they're the place of the people.
And it aligns directly with our First Amendment rights to access to information. And so by using the Individual Career Mapping process, libraries aren't just helping individuals, they're strengthening our economy from the ground up.
Speaker 2 (15:26)
Wow, it's amazing. And for people who want to learn more, where should they go?
Speaker 1 (15:30)
Well, I think the best place is for them to go to our website and drop down the tab on our programs and see Workforce and you'll be able to find us.
Speaker 2 (15:44)
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much, It's been a conversation.
Speaker 1 (15:47)
Wow, thank you guys.
Speaker 3 (15:53)
And that's all for this episode of Diversify Nevada. This podcast was created by the Governor's Office of Economic Development with the help of our sound editor, Michelle Rebaleati. If you'd to learn more about our agency, you can visit our website at goed.nv.gov. And if you'd like to share feedback about the show or suggest a topic you'd us to cover, send us an email to goed@goed.nv.gov. Thanks for joining us and we'll be back soon.