Jan Bray

Laurie is a nationally recognized champion and advocate for workforce development. She supports NAWB in fortifying the readiness of the national system. She represents NAWB in the Next Level Now Collaborative to provide technical assistance to states and local boards.

Topping more than four decades in workforce board leadership across three major regions of Texas, Laurie is a proven CEO of a multi-million-dollar non-profit, award-winning board, and practitioner in both public and privately funded workforce initiatives where she honed her skills in creative fund strategies and braiding, upskilling and reskilling workers, quality childcare for working families, refugee/immigrant workforce assistance, young adult employment, and adult education. She built partnerships to produce a PBS RoadTrip Nation documentary “Wide Open Range” following four young Texans as they pursued their workforce exploration.

As a former president, Laurie continues to serve as a Trustee of the Workforce Development Council of the US Conference of Mayors and has testified before Congressional committees on numerous workforce-related topics. She is based in Rowlett, Texas with her husband, Robert.

Erica is currently serving as a Senior Advisor. With a deep commitment to advancing economic opportunity, Erica works closely with local workforce development boards and partners to ensure that America’s workforce system is innovative and responsive to the needs of workers, employers, and communities. 

Prior to NAWB, she served as the Vice President of Economic Mobility at Feeding America, a network that reaches over 50M neighbors each year. Erica oversaw the strategy to address long-term food and financial security. In that capacity, she led an innovation network that identified and replicated high-impact programs and partnerships at the intersection of the charitable food system and the workforce, housing, and financial empowerment fields. Prior to Feeding America, Erica was the Vice President of Networks at Independent Sector (IS), the premier forum for charities and foundations in the US. In addition to leading membership and community engagement, she mapped collaboration within the nonprofit community and was the head researcher on major projects to understand drivers of success in the American nonprofit community and in public policy advocacy. Erica also served as Deputy Director for the National Council of Nonprofits, an organization dedicated to building the capacity and impact of 20,000 local organizations. She began her career running afterschool programs for girls in underserved neighborhoods in San Jose, CA.    

Erica is an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University’s Center for Public and Nonprofit Leadership. She holds a master’s degree and a Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate from the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown and a B.A. from Wesleyan University, CT. She is currently based in the Washington, D.C. area.