Luther Jackson is a Silicon Valley-based workforce development expert with 14 years of front-line experience as a program manager at the highly acclaimed NOVA Workforce Development Board in Sunnyvale, Calif. Jackson has led multiple initiatives preparing individuals from historically excluded communities for well-paying careers in high-growth industry sectors including software development and zero-emission transportation.
He has convened diverse regional partnerships featuring employers, educators, labor leaders, and community-based organizations, and led the research team that produced NOVA’s groundbreaking “Bridge to Career Success’’ report that employed qualitative surveys and ethnographic interviews to identify the “five truths” for remaining relevant in the disruptive Silicon Valley tech economy. Leveraging funding from the state and federal governments and corporate philanthropy, Jackson also led workforce initiatives focused on the training needs of individuals on the autism spectrum, regional high school students, and low-income learners of color from Oakland, Calif.
Jackson’s current research and writing focuses on crafting a new vision for U. S. human capital development focused on achieving accessible, affordable, lifelong learning for all Americans, as well as access to a wide range of career opportunities. He is also working with CHIPS Communities United, a coalition of community, environmental, and labor leaders working to ensure that investments in semiconductor facilities funded by the federal CHIPS and Science Act include protections for workers and considerations for impacted communities.
At Brookings Metro, Jackson will work with Fellow Annelies Goger on initiatives seeking to address the impacts of racial and spatial segregation on regional economies as well as expanding access to social capital and career navigation skills for leaners and workers from historically excluded communities. Goger and Jackson previously collaborated on a Brookings piece, “The labor market doesn’t have a ‘skills gap’—it has an opportunity gap,” in September 2020.
Jackson serves on the boards of Hack the Hood, an Oakland-based tech career accelerator for underrepresented learners;, the De Anza College journalism department; and the Everett Program, a University of California, Santa Cruz initiative developing leaders to use technology to address sustainable societal solutions rooted in a commitment to social justice and environmental regeneration.
Prior to joining NOVA, Jackson led the labor union representing newspaper workers in San Jose and Monterey, Calif., and prior to that was a newspaper journalist at the Detroit Free Press.
Jackson is a cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and a native of Glen Ridge, N.J.