Valerie Palamountain, Class of 2013

   
Valerie Palamountain
Dean of Workforce Services, Piedmont Virginia Community College
Charlottesville, VA

What is new and exciting with you now or since your time with Lead Virginia? 
I am working a state-wide project with the other community colleges in the state, looking at ways we can progress state-wide in workforce development. There has been a lot more collaboration in the workforce training programs to get workers to the jobs that need people to fill the positions as soon as possible. We are able to see where the need is and send workers to those jobs that are in critical need. I have seen the benefits of the community colleges through our collaboration because without it we could miss opportunities and we would not be able to share resources. Therefore, I have successfully gained the ability to work and share with my sister colleges.

How has your Lead Virginia experience influenced or shaped you as a leader?
Lead Virginia has given me a broader perspective on the different needs and issues facing all of Virginia, not just my local community. While Virginia is one state, it has so many nuances. I have also gained more in-depth understanding of the career needs in the state and that not all college students are going to stay in the same area they went to school in. Understanding the mobility of college students has also improved my knowledge of student and economic development across the state.

Since Lead Virginia, how have you put your social capital to work?
Since I graduated in 2013, I have connected with several other alumni who also work in community colleges across Virginia, and together we have created our own support network. We are able to have conversations about the things we learned in our class and have a better understanding of the needs in different areas. Through my classmates, I have also gained much more business contacts than I had before. Through the program, I have been able to bring many of the resources and connections I gained back to benefit both the students at the community college and my overall community. I have also kept in touch with my Lead Virginia class through LinkedIn and Facebook, where I am able to share things happening in my life and see things happening in theirs.

What is something that Lead Virginia inspired you to do that you were not doing before your class year? 

After graduating from Lead Virginia, I was able to branch out into new projects that I did not think were possible before. Lead Virginia gave me the confidence to say, “yes, I can do this, I can make a change.”Since graduating, I advocated for a better job training program at the community college that was going to require funding. It is a performance-based program that we just received funding for this past year. I did not think it would happen when I started my Lead Virginia experience, but now we are three months in and the program is doing very well. In the end, the program will not be a burden on taxpayers because the program is focused on getting those who have low paying jobs into jobs where they can contribute to taxes rather than take from them.

What did you expect from Lead Virginia going in? Did the program exceed your expectations and broaden your horizons?
Yes, the program did exceed my expectations. When I first started the program, I had experienced other leadership programs, so I went in thinking that it would be the same. It was the similar on some levels but also very different. I remember what really stuck with me was one of the first things that they told us at the beginning of the program; “We are not going to teach you to be leaders because you already are leaders. We are going to show you where you need to be.” That’s when I knew this was a different type of program going much deeper than any other program I had been involved in before. Lead Virginia was looking at where the need was in the economic sector, in the workforce, in health care, and in transportation. The program focused on the issues, not telling me how the government worked but what the government should be focused on to improve the Commonwealth.