ICSEW March 2023 membership meeting!

The meeting will take place from 8:30 a.m. to noon March 21st via Zoom. Meetings are free and open to anyone, regardless of gender or employment status.

How to Register: Please visit our meetings page to register. Once you are registered, you will receive an email confirmation with instructions on how to join the meeting. Below is a summary of our scheduled presentations. Our meetings page has a copy of our current meeting agenda.

Description:

Topic 1: Building relationships and support networks

Too often, we've been conditioned to think that asking for support is a sign of weakness, and the only way to handle a situation is entirely on our own. That's not true!

This way of thinking is harmful leads to burnout. This session explores different types of support we can seek and how to use it to help us achieve personal and professional goals. 

Topic 2: Business Resource Group, BRG, panel discussion

Hear from several Business Resource Groups on how we can support them and their mission and goals. BRGs bring together groups of employees and their allies who have a common interest or characteristic. Per the governor's executive order, all employees may attend BRG meetings and be involved in BRG activities. View a FAQ about employee participation here.

Panelists from our state's BRGS will take part in a moderated Q&A panel about how we can all be part of their support network and a good ally.  

Washington state has seven BRGS (Blacks United In Leadership and Diversity - BUILD, Rainbow Alliance and Inclusion Network - RAIN, Veteran Employees Resource Group - VERG, Disability Inclusion Network – DIN, Washington Immigrant Network -WIN, Latino Leadership Network – LLN and Hawaiians, Asians and Pacific Islanders Promoting an Empowerment Network - HAPPEN). To learn more about each BRG visit click here.

About the Presenters:

Dr. Wendy Fraser believes in and mentors the collective wisdom in an organization by engaging the talents and hearts of people. Through leadership and organization development, she fosters and builds capacity through strengthening human relationships and systems so that groups and organizations thrive. She brings fresh approaches to her work with a flare of humor and can yield results.  

For more than a decade, Fraser researched trust behaviors and trust repair in groups. She is a speaker and consultant who helps groups and organizations thrive. She has more than 25 years of experience in organization development working with public, private, education, nonprofit, and tribal clients throughout the United States, Canada, Caribbean Islands and China.  

Fraser received the State of Washington Governor's Distinguished Managers Award for Sustaining Leaders and was also honored with an international humanitarian award for her work with developing leadership strengths in youth around the world. 

Fraser has doctorate degree and and three master's degrees and teaches at two universities. She lives in Olympia with her family and volunteers for local schools and community service organizations. 

Panelists:

Christina Pourarien – WIN Pourarien is the chair of the Washington Immigrant Network, WIN.

Pourarien is an information technology services division executive operations manager for the State of Washington Employment Security Department, ESD. While there, served as co-chair of the agency's Asian American Pacific Islander, AAPI employee business resource group.

Pourarien began her career in state service in 1999 at the Washington State Lottery. She has also worked at the former General Administration (now the Department of Enterprise Services), Department of Retirement Systems, the Evergreen State College, Department of Social Health and Services and the Department of Licensing and Labor Industries.

Pourarien was born in Great Falls, MT, and immigrated to South Korea with her family when she was 6 months old. Her family moved back to the US when she was a young child in the 1980s. Her father served in the US Air Force and her mother is originally from Korea. Pourarien attended public school in the North Thurston School District in Lacey. She received a bachelor's degree in psychology from Central Washington University and is the first person in her family to receive a formal college education in America.

Caleb Baldwin – RAIN Baldwin is a human resource consultant with ESD. Caleb champions policies related to equity, diversity and inclusion and helps revamp ESD's reasonable accommodations policy. Caleb is also member of two of ESD's employee resources groups, PRIDE, for ESD's LGBTQ+ community, and DERG, the agency's Disability Employee Resource Group.                                                                                                                                                  

Kristen Jenkins - RAIN Jenkins is the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission's equity engagement communications specialist. Jenkins works with underserved and highly-impacted communities to encourage engagement in UTC processes. Jenkins helps deliver vital information directly to the public. And works on language access and accessibility standards in government communications.

Jenkins has been a member of RAIN for 6 years and has served on its leadership team for the past 3. She was also one of the founding members of HAPPEN, the state's BRG for Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders and allies. Jenkins is a queer Asian-American Olympia, Washington with her 9-year-old pet ghost shrimp, Gojira.  

Larry Delgado - VERG Delgado is the diversity, equity, and inclusion manager with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. He also chairs VERG. Delgado was hired with the state in 2020. His roles in state employment include learning, design and delivery professional and the DEI Development Manager for DES.

Delgado retired from the US Army in December 2017 at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. He served in the military for 20 years, achieving the rank of chief warrant officer. During his service, Delgado had increasing responsibilities as a human resources officer and had deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Panama. 

Delgado is a first-generation Nicaraguan-American. He was born and and raised in Homestead, Fl. He got a bachelor's degree in organizational leadership from Brandman University and holds multiple certifications including intercultural development inventory, qualified administrator, facilitation and design master, racial equity and the law, inclusive and ethical leadership, diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace Train-the-Trainer: helpful tips for leading and facilitating conversations on race.

Monica Hupp – LLN

Hupp is a project manager for the state Department of Health and is the co-chair for LLN. Hupp is an expert on managing large hospital projects and events in healthcare and community settings. She has a bachelor's degree in sociology from California State University Fullerton.

Hupp is passionate about project management and the profound social impact projects can have on communities, policies, and systemic change.

Receive our meeting and event notifications: Receive notifications of upcoming meetings as well as post-meeting summaries via GovDelivery. Notifications are also posted on our meetings page on icsew.wa.gov and on Facebook. We also have an at-a-glance calendar of all our events where you can register for them and add them directly to your calendar.

In Case You Missed It:

March 1 marks the beginning of Women's History Month. ICSEW is pleased to announce the winners of our Women's History Month virtual background contest.

We had six wonderful submissions. The ICSEW communications subcommittee members selected their favorite designs.

Congratulations to Julie Hyde from the Department of Health and Rebecca LaMar from the Washington State Health Care Authority!

Thank you to everyone who participated. Please enjoy these virtual backgrounds to use during your meetings throughout the month. Simply right click on the image to save them. These backgrounds are also available from our blog.

Sharing is caring! Please feel free to forward this meeting notice to your ICSEW executive sponsor, your agency's communications division and anyone else you think may be interested in ICSEW events.

Warmly,

ICSEW Executive Board