Professional Summary

Dawn Karber Bio 1

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After a 20-year career in the public workforce industry, including 11 years as Chief Operations Officer for a local workforce board, Dawn created Talent Growth Group, LLC to serve the workforce talent and business ecosystem more broadly. She is energized by complex projects, developing and supporting partnerships, helping groups and teams create and/or align visions and goals to solve complicated challenges, creating unique solutions to multifaceted problems, and cheering on and supporting others throughout their professional growth journey. She has a graduate degree in public administration, is certified in human-centered design principles and served as an Aspen Institute Marano Fellow.

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Dawn Karber Bio 2

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Dawn Karber is a dynamic leader with over 20 years of experience in the public workforce sector, including a decade as Chief Operations and Equal Opportunity Officer for a prominent local workforce board. She is currently spearheading SkillsFWD – a groundbreaking pilot supported by Rockefeller Philanthropic Advisors and various foundations partnering to test digital Learning and Employment Records within the skills-first movement. Dawn has a graduate degree in public administration and an undergraduate background in kinesiology and coaching. She’s certified in human-centered design and is an honored Aspen Institute Marano Fellow. She loves big ideas, sharing laughs with her mischievous little dog, and unwinding on the Oregon Coast.

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Current Work

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SkillsFWD Executive Director (2023-Present) - Contracted to serve as executive director of SkillsFWD, a philanthropically-funded pilot designed to test Learning and Employment Records as a tool in the skills-first movement where Dawn is contracted to serve as the initiative's director through Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. Within 50 weeks, created a able-to-standalone organizational model including internal processes, funder engagement processes, and external/partnership values and expectations; operations and organizational roles and responsibilities; agreed upon "company" tone and tenor; contract management budget management software; budget and spending plan; completed approximately 30 contracts with grantees and/or consultants; support that creation a cohort, action network, vendor network coordinatized by the initiative's Network Director; and created a SkillsFWD podcast, webinars and monthly learning sessions.

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Workforce Communities of Action (2023-2024) - A Jobs for the Future training cohort Dawn was contracted to support as a human-centered design subject matter expert serving 10 local workforce boards.

Notable Work

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• Redesigned an American Job Center - Including integrating 23 programs leading to a nationally-recognized best practice model.

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• Created a youth employment and education center - They recently and proudly graduated their 1,800th student.

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• Led the vision and implementation of a social services hub - First of its kind human services center launched in partnership with an American Job Center that provided access to housing, health services, re-entry support, equity training, services for immigrants and refugees, childcare and financial literacy support; and was visited by Secretary Ben Carson to celebrate its success. 

• Launched a technical assistance and consulting division that expanded into the WorkforceNerd brand and weekly spotlights on Spokane's Fox28 television station.

• Organized and led the transition of a city department to a quasi-governmental nonprofit.

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• Teamed up with a local PBS station to co-design career spotlights that reach 2.3 million homes in the Northwest and Canada.

• Trained over 1,500 individuals on human-centered design techniques, and instructed two Aspen Sector Skills Academies in partnership with the Seattle-based nonprofit SkillUp.

• Led a transformation of a publicly-funded business services team into a highly-functioning, employer-focused and business-minded talent sourcing division. 

• Created and/or launched a nonprofit, Limited Liability Corporation, and S Corp - Most recently, redesigning the S Corp as a co-op partnership model that supports workforce and skills-first consultants with the intention of reducing non-value-added activities through a shared operations program thus collectively increasing opportunities to support and advance the workforce development and skills-first ecosystem.