Strengthening Talent Pipelines Using Pathways to Success

Communities nationwide are working to close skills gaps, strengthen talent pipelines, and create clearer connections between education and high-demand careers. Too often, those systems operate in silos and learners, especially those historically underserved in education and employment, struggle to navigate complex pathways. The Pathways to Success Toolkit was designed to address these challenges by helping communities align education, workforce, and industry partners around learner-centered pathways that lead to valuable credentials, high-wage jobs, and economic mobility.  

Pathways to Success comes at a pivotal moment, aligning with the federal expansion of Workforce Pell Grants — which will make short-term, high-quality workforce training programs eligible for Federal Pell Grant funding starting in July 2026. Communities can use the toolkit’s five key strategies and emulate real-world success stories to design programs that qualify for this new funding stream and make career pathways more affordable for learners.  

During this webinar, participants will learn how the toolkit was developed and how it can be used to help communities organize partnerships, align goals and metrics, leverage funding (including Workforce Pell Grant opportunities), and design learner-centered pathways that address education and workforce barriers and increase long-term success.  

The Pathways to Success Toolkit provides step-by-step guidance, tools, and examples that support shared goal setting, coordinated service delivery, stackable credentials, and stronger engagement with employers and community partners.  

Pathways to Success is a collaborative effort supported by ECMC Foundation, IntermediaryEd, ACT Education Corp., Metropolitan Community College (Omaha, Nebraska), and the College of Southern Nevada (Las Vegas, Nevada). 

Who should attend: 

• K–12 career and technical education (CTE) leaders.

• Postsecondary leaders.

• Workforce development board leaders and staff.

• Economic development organizations and community-based partners.

• Employers engaged in building regional talent pipelines.

• Emerging or certified ACT^® Work Ready Communities^® (WRC^®) stakeholders. 

Why attend: 

• Learn how to break down silos and align cross-sector partners.

• Explore practical tools to improve pathway design and coordination.

• Understand how Workforce Pell Grant eligibility can support short-term training programs.

• Discover strategies to expand access, remove barriers, and support learner success.

• Gain insight into braided funding strategies that strengthen sustainability and scale. 

What you can expect to learn: 

• How to implement a shared vision and common metrics across partners.

• Approaches for integrating education, training, and supportive services.

• Strategies for developing stackable credentials aligned to workforce needs.

• Insights on Workforce Pell Grant fundamentals and how to design programs that may qualify for this new federal aid option.

• How to use the toolkit’s five strategies to build a more coordinated, learner-centered pathway system. 

Tammy Green 
Executive Director of Community and Workforce Education 
Metropolitan Community College – Fort Omaha 
Tammy Green serves as the executive director of workforce education at Metropolitan Community College in Omaha, Nebraska. She leads large-scale initiatives that connect education, industry, and community partners to expand access to high-demand career pathways. With extensive experience bridging K-12 education, government relations, and adult education, Tammy has built strong collaborations that align resources and strategies across systems to support learners at every stage. 

Tina Gridiron 
Chief Impact and Learning Officer 
ACT 
Tina Gridiron serves as Chief Impact and Learning Officer for ACT’s Center for Impact and Learning and in this role, she strives to build, enhance, and embed asset-based learning and learner-centered solutions across the ACT enterprise. By strengthening and supporting ACT’s internal inclusion and accessibility efforts and building collaborations with external impact-focused leaders and organizations, Tina supports ACT’s broader efforts to close gaps in opportunity and outcomes in the education and workforce arenas. 

Dr. Cindy Hill 
Industrial/Organizational Psychologist  
ACT 
Dr. Cindy Hill is an industrial/organizational psychologist in the Research division at ACT. She has been a major contributor to the ACT^® WorkKeys^® system for more than 25 years. Her work has included the refresh of the ACT^® WorkKeys^® National Career Readiness Certificate™ (NCRC^®), a portable, evidence-based credential that certifies the essential skills for workplace success. Her recent research has explored the alignment and “stacking” of credentials through standardized frameworks and the use of technology. Dr. Hill has also spent many years developing and reviewing licensure and certification programs. This includes job analysis, the development of test content outlines, national surveys, data analysis, item writing and review, standard setting, and validating the test scores of off-the-shelf and company-specific tests. As part of ACT’s partnership with the Association for Talent Development, she developed and facilitates its Test Design and Delivery Certificate Program. 

Paula Kashtan 
Program Officer 
ECMC Foundation 
Paula Kashtan is a program officer at ECMC Foundation, a national postsecondary funder focused on closing gaps in postsecondary completion for economic and social mobility. Paula’s grantmaking portfolio focuses on holistic advising. She sits on the steering committee of Grantmakers for Education’s Postsecondary Access and Attainment Impact Group, as well as the Families and Workers Fund’s Workers Thriving in the AI Era working group. Prior to joining ECMC Foundation, Paula worked in development at College Possible Minnesota, where she was responsible for more than $3 million in annual foundation fundraising to support college access and success programming for students from low-income backgrounds. She also has extensive nonprofit programmatic experience, with a particular focus on college matriculation and persistence initiatives serving students not historically represented in higher education. She’s held leadership positions at College Access: Research and Action, National School Climate Center, and Step Up, as well as a teaching role at Manual Arts High School in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Paula holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Northwestern University and a master's degree in urban education from UCLA.