Contact: Jennifer Smith (608) 443-1961 or jsmith@thrivehere.org
June 30, 2008 (Madison, WI) – Thrive, the not-for-profit economic development enterprise serving the eight-county Madison Region*, is pleased to announce the appointment of Sue Gleason as Director of Regional Assets and Metrics. Sue began her full time role with Thrive June 30.
“We are thrilled to have Sue on staff with Thrive, heading up our regional assets projects and to develop our metrics across our target sectors of agriculture, biotechnology and healthcare,” said Jennifer Alexander, President of Thrive.
Ms. Gleason brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to her role at Thrive, with twenty-six years of professional experience in the field of workforce development. Throughout her career, a primary interest for Sue has been the intersection of education, workforce development, and regional economic growth.
In the past few years this has included providing leadership on a number of regional and industry sector initiatives, including Wisconsin’s first Regional Metrics Benchmarking Initiative, with a set of regional economic metrics to track industry and job growth, educational attainment, and quality of life; helping to launch the state’s Select Committee on Healthcare Workforce Development, a collaborative group of industry, labor, education, and government leaders concerned with healthcare workforce issues; and establishing the Growing Regional Opportunities in Wisconsin (GROW) effort, which invested $1 million over two years to support regional partnerships of workforce/economic development, education, business, and labor. Sue helped leverage this GROW investment into two federal grants totaling $10 million through the Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED) effort, half of which includes the (Thrive) Madison
Region.
Most recently, Sue was a Deputy Administrator with the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD), managing a division with various employment and training focus areas including the Federal Workforce Investment Act youth and adult apprenticeship programs; services for immigrant, refugee and migrant workers; and Employment Service activities providing direct service to job seekers and businesses. Sue’s work also included a joint partnership with the Wisconsin Technical College System to co-chair the state’s Regional Industry Skills Education (RISE) effort to support career pathways foundations to better meet regional business workforce skills needs while helping create pathways to better jobs for workers.
In her current role with Thrive, Sue will be responsible for:
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Aligning metrics across economic development and quality of life initiatives
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Project and initiative direction, management, coordination, planning, relationship building, research, staffing and reporting
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Strategy, management, coordination, planning and identification of assets and metrics projects/initiatives in coordination with Thrive staff and external stakeholders
Our vision: To grow the eight-county Madison Wisconsin region’s economy in ways that preserve and enhance the quality of life. *The eight-county Madison Region includes: Columbia, Dane, Dodge, Green, Iowa, Jefferson, Rock and Sauk.
