A program of the California Workforce Association
A nine-month, cohort-based fellowship for new and established workforce executives — led by CWA Executive Director Adam Peck, CWA Chief Impact Officer Tom Price, and Tim Aldinger.
One demands accountability, compliance, and the careful handling of public trust. The other demands vision — the ability to align partners you don't control and move whole regions forward. This fellowship is built for leaders who want to do both well.
You'll come away knowing yourself better as a leader, with stronger relationships and practical tools you can put to work the following week.
Start with personal awareness. Using StrengthsFinder, you'll understand your own leadership style, how you show up for others, and how to lead from your strengths.
Build a trusting partnership with your Board Chair, and learn to govern with clarity, not just compliance.
Grant and fiscal management, effective meetings, and a more diverse funding base. Compliance becomes a tool for steering, not just surviving an audit.
Regional collaboration, stakeholder analysis, and the politics of leading partners you don't manage: agencies, colleges, employers, and economic development.
Learning pods, a mentor who is a sitting workforce executive, and a capstone project on your own work. You'll finish with colleagues you can call for years.
Four in-person gatherings across California anchor the program. Between them, the real work happens — in your own organization, with your cohort.
Long Beach Workforce Innovation Network
Foundation for California Community Colleges offices
Town and Country Resort, following WORKCON
Meeting of the Minds
Between sessions, fellows apply the frameworks inside their own organizations and stay connected with the cohort — turning ideas into practice, and colleagues into a network.
Each of the first three sessions runs 1:00–5:00 PM on day one and 8:00 AM–noon on day two. Dates and venues shown are for the 2026–27 cohort and are confirmed each year.
You'll learn alongside faculty who know California's workforce system from the inside — and who lead it today.
Adam has spent his career leading workforce boards and shaping the systems that connect Californians to good jobs. As Executive Director of CWA, he sits at the intersection of state policy and local practice — and brings fellows a statewide vantage point on where the field is heading. He'll help you see your board not as a constraint, but as one of your best assets.
Tim brings deep workforce development leadership and years of guiding executives through the toughest parts of the job. A skilled facilitator, he creates the kind of candid, high-trust room where real learning happens. Fellows leave his sessions with practical frameworks — and the confidence to use them Monday morning.
Tom is a design leader who has led large-scale system change at workforce boards. He now leads CWA's California AI Blueprint work, and he specializes in human-centered approaches to the complex problems facing California's workforce system. In the Fellowship, he helps you bring that same design thinking to the challenges in your own organization.
Register and pay online to join the next cohort. The Fellowship is limited to about 20 fellows.
Register and pay online through our secure Ticket Tailor checkout. Your seat is confirmed once payment is complete.
Register & payNeed to pay by invoice or have questions? Email fellowship@calworkforce.org.