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Jane Oates Highlight
Don’t be afraid to do something different because different is how we got here. And ‘here’ is a pretty good place, but the future is going to be even better if we have risk takers.
About Jane
- I earned my bachelor’s degree in education and started my career as a special education teacher.
- After spending some time teaching, I realized that I didn’t know how to teach reading as well as I should, so I went back to school to earn a master’s degree as a reading specialist.
- I later moved on to work as a research professor at Temple University.
- The opportunity to go to Washington, DC, and work in policy eventually presented itself, so I followed that path.
- I served as a senior policy advisor for Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts for almost a decade and then spent three years as a senior advisor to Governor Jon S. Corzine.
- In 2009, I was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve as Assistant Secretary for the Employment and Training Administration under Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis.
- I moved on to work as vice president of external affairs for the Apollo Group before joining WorkingNation, a nonprofit media entity that shares stories to promote solutions for the U.S. workforce.
- I started at WorkingNation as an executive committee member and now serve as president of the organization.
