Melissa Bailey Photo
One year after he showed up at New Haven Works unemployed, Josue Rodriguez is wrapping up an internship at Yale’s IT department — and confident he’s close to landing a full-time job.
Rodriguez (pictured above with Nancy Flowers-Mangs, his mentor at Yale’s information technology web services group) emerged Thursday as the face of a new effort to connect New Haveners with jobs.
That effort, carried out by the not-for-profit New Haven Works, launched last June with a mission to place at least 250 New Haveners into jobs in its first year. On Thursday, the organization gathered workers and politicians together to announce that it had surpassed its goal: In its first year, the organization placed 323 New Haveners into temporary or permanent jobs.
Mayor Toni Harp announced that news in a festive press conference Thursday at the organization’s office on Whitney Avenue. The organization, which has seven staff, is half funded by public money from the state and city and half by private donations, most significantly Yale University, according to Mary Reynolds (pictured), the executive director.
Malloy told mayoral Chief of Staff Tomas Reyes: “You’re doing a great job.”
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, Attorney General George Jepsen, Board of Alders President Jorge Perez and a half-dozen alders showed up Thursday to celebrate the event and tout the program’s success.
Josue Rodriguez, who moved to New Haven from Puerto Rico 20 years ago, was one of the first New Haveners to pass through the pipeline. He also spoke at New Haven Works’ inaugural event last year.
Rodriguez had been unemployed for nearly a year before his pastor passed along his resume to Reynolds. He had experience as a computer programmer — a skill that’s in high demand these days. Reynolds helped him get a temporary job at Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Science. Then her office helped him land a second temporary job at a Yale help desk.
Then Reynolds connected with Lisa Sawin, who was starting up a new web technologies group within Yale’s information technology department. Sawin devised an internship for Rodriguez to address some gaps in his knowledge, including the Drupal content management system. The internship was paid for by New Haven Works using state Department of Labor money designed to train unemployed people and get them into the workforce, according to Reynolds.
Now Rodriguez is nearing the end of his internship — and hoping to land a full-time job.
With the training he received though his internship, Rodriguez said, “I’m confident I’ll have a career at Yale.”
Nancy Flowers-Mangs, his mentor, said if Yale doesn’t hire him, she’s confident she could find him a job somewhere else.
Of the 323 New Haveners placed into jobs through New Haven works, 43 percent landed temporary gigs like Rodriguez did. The rest landed full-time positions, according to Reynolds.
Henry Gibbs counts himself in that 57 percent. He said he had just walked away from a failed interview when he saw a postcard on the ground for New Haven Works.
“I figured, why not give it a try?”
Now he has a full-time job at New England Conservation Services.
Malloy, who’s running for election, gave the program a rousing endorsement.
“This is important work,” he said. “This is worth committing to on a statewide basis.”
Ok..sounds good, but the key question is how many of the 330 employed live in New Haven, and how many times are they counting Josue Rodriguez and others (mentioned above and also here on June 5, 2013:
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/new_haven_works_and_so_does_osikhena/
Malloy needs to look more deeply and verify the count before he hands out premature praises to chief of staff, Tomas Reyes, who contributed nothing to this effort which started one year ago.