Dr. Nydia Martinez Is the Executive Director of the Latino Academy for Workforce Development: Choosing the Non-Profit World Over Academia (Part 2 of 2)
Dr. Nydia Martinez grew up in the rural area of the Mexican State of Guerrero in southern Mexico, but completed most of her education in the United States.
by Jonathan Gramling
Nydia Martinez, the executive director of the Latino Academy for Workforce Development, has traveled a long, winding road to Madison. And it all started in the state of Guerrero in southern Mexico where she grew up in a very rural, Indigenous community with an education system that began and ended on the elementary school level. Her journey led her to San Antonio, Texas where she eventually earned her Ph.D. in philosophy
And while she ended up working in academia at Washington State University, her heart was always with the non-profits that aided her in her journey and she wanted to give back. Martinez jumped at the opportunity to lead the Latino Academy. And she has a special affinity to the challenges of immigrants.
“There is so much talent that is being lost, lost due to language barriers or the certifications that had to be followed that can create barriers,” Martinez said. “And the amount of talent that the communities bring. I don’t know where to start on how much we miss with that. We have people who are coming with engineering degrees. They are coming with so much experience. And they get here and they have to start from zero. And they have the humbleness and the diligence to continue. And they make it through. It’s very impressive to see. They are learning a new language and a new culture. Many of them are coming with nothing. And yet, they survive. They succeed on their own mighty.”
And Martinez emphasized that today’s immigrant is just like the immigrants of bygone eras. Only the faces have changed.
“At one time, this country was built by immigrants with a similar DNA, goals and ideas and resiliency and how they had to adapt,” Martinez said. “They were immigrants and many of them went through the same experience as immigrants are going through right now of discrimination. Irish, German, Catholic, Greeks and others were not considered white. They were not considered to be welcome in this country at one point. So over time, the idea of who is the desirable immigrant has shifted. It has never been stable. Again, right now, this is the moment that we are in. But it will be shifting once again. It’s just how the whole process goes.”
Martinez and the Latino Academy are all about empowerment as people move from one stage to another.
“We do not use the language that we save anyone,” Martinez emphasized. “We are not saviors of everyone. We just open the doors and they are the ones who have the mighty power to walk through those doors and succeed. How can you not be excited about that?”
While people may assume that all of the Latino Academy’s clients are from south of the border, its clientele is very diverse.
“Right now, our numbers are about 2,200-2,500 people served per year,” Martinez said. “We have waiting lists. So we are already maxed out. We serve everyone who walks through the door. We have the multicultural experience and expertise to support communities from Latin America, which in this case come from 20 different countries plus the United States. But we serve everyone. We have people from Africa, people from the U.S., African Americans, whites and so on.”
The Latino Academy’s services are housed in three departments or verticals as Martinez refers to them, transportation, education and workforce. A lot of the transportation services is centered on commercial drivers licenses.
“Our transportation training facility is in Lake Mills, which is supported by a federal grant,” Martinez said. “Education includes ESL, GED in Spanish as well as the recertification of GED credentials. And when possible, some more advanced credentials from the home countries to help individuals move into a better aligned job based on their expertise. Now we are also focusing on digital literacy for the workforce when it is needed. Sometimes our community, for a variety of reasons, they don’t know how to use a computer, which they need to even apply for a manual job, even for a custodian job. The application is online. We want to make sure that we get them from zero to intermediate.”
Workforce development is a large part of what the Latino Academy does.
“We are focusing on construction,” Martinez said. “We got a big grant from the Lowes Foundation. That is for construction. And then we are also doing hospitality, certification around hospitality. We do Serv Safe and Food Handler certifications. And of coursed that includes everything that is needed for people to succeed. We also have safety training. When possible, we do forklift training. Contractors are small business owners. And so they need to get all of that support when it comes to, ‘How do you manage social media in order for you to advertise your business as a contractor?’ We work with them on all of them. And of course some of the programs are grant dependent. Depending on the grants that we have is how we have availability of these programs.”
The labor market and the funding environment that the Academy is in are ever changing. And so Martinez is leading her staff through a process to plan for the future and develop resiliency for the agency.
“There is a need for soft skills, human skills as well as this need for digital literacy,” Martinez observed. “Our workforce needs to be adapting to that and connecting it to the Trades. How do we bring that triage together to serve the needs of the workforce, a workforce that needs to respond to 21st Century needs? We cannot just be thinking about construction of 20 years ago. We need to think about preparing a worker for construction for the 21st Century. What does that mean in the 21st Century? You have to take into consideration the technology, even the basic part. Will they use the computer because most of the applications are online even if they aren’t going to do any other computer work? But they still have to put in their hours online. How do they apply for the job that is online? How do they have to communicate with their bosses with email and so on? Those are basic things that perhaps 20 years ago, you were thinking that was not needed because they just need to know how to mail something. We have to understand what is, what we call it today, the fourth industrial revolution. What does it mean? Even though we are preparing the workforce, we have to be thinking about what are those shifts that are happening in order for us to prepare them.”
In Martinez’s view, the landscape is changing rapidly.
“It’s a global labor market now,” Martinez said. “We have to understand the different impacts. It’s not just about the economic, the political, the social dynamics. You have to look at where we are at right now. What are the changes that are happening? And you have to keep looking up front. Preparing a workforce for us is preparing our community so that they are resilient, so that when they pivot, they have the tools to be able to do that. Right now, as a team, we are thinking about what the needs are that we can offer at this entry level. I’m not talking about preparing engineers. Entry level is going to be needed not just for tomorrow’s job, but it is going to be needed for the next 5-10 years as we are thinking about all of the shifts that are happening. We cannot be blind and ignore the shifts that are going to impact these jobs.”
Nydia Martinez was looking for a place where she could directly touch people’s lives and see the results of her efforts. She could find no better place to fulfill her professional life than the Latino Academy for Workforce Development. Martinez is giving back, helping people on their journey just as those before her helped her. Martinez’s life has indeed come full circle.