Message from the CEO: Introducing Ridgeline

Today, we’re officially announcing Ridgeline, a new nonprofit I co-founded to build the bridge between education and employment across the Bay Area.

Ridgeline is built on a belief I've carried since my first days in the classroom as a teacher in Los Angeles. Every young person has extraordinary potential and deserves the opportunity to discover who they are, pursue their purpose, and thrive.

An amazing group of 7th and 8th graders showed me what young people are capable of, and ever since, I've been working to create the conditions that allow them to thrive – helping build talent pipelines with Teach For America, supporting first-gen students at Making Waves, and now designing career pathways into high-demand, high-wage careers through Ridgeline.

Over the last two decades, I've seen the same challenge again and again: Young people need clearer pathways into careers, and employers need stronger pathways to talent.

A Bay Area where education and industry work together

Our vision is a Bay Area where education and industry work together to create pathways into high-demand careers.

Too many young people are asked to make important decisions about their futures without meaningful exposure to careers or workplaces. At the same time, employers struggle to find the talent they need.

The challenge is structural. Individual schools were never designed to track shifting labor-market demand, build work-based learning opportunities with employers, or coordinate career pathways across an entire region. Ridgeline exists to help solve that challenge.

Ridgeline does three things:

• We help employers define pathways into high-demand careers.
• We help young people move through those pathways through career exploration, work-based learning, credentialing, and employment opportunities.
• We help schools, colleges, and employers work together so those pathways can succeed at scale.
  

No single school, college, or employer can do this work alone. Ridgeline serves as the connector, bringing these organizations together and helping create clearer routes from education to opportunity for young people across the Bay Area.

Over time, we're building what Jobs for the Future calls the "Big Blur" between education and work, spanning grades 11-14, where students can earn college credit, industry credentials, work experience, and professional networks while still on the path to a degree or career.

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Introducing Ridgeline

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What’s in the works for this summer

We've already reached more than 125 Bay Area high schoolers through our healthcare pathway programs. This summer, we are:

• Expanding with HealthWorks, starting with a Certified Nursing Assistant program, that helps students move from career exploration into credentialing and clinical experience.
• Launching Hands-On Deck, our first maritime career intensive.
  

We're doing this with incredible collaborators, including Kaiser Permanente, Contra Costa College, the Working Waterfront Coalition, Cal Poly Maritime Academy, and local district and charter schools.

Meet Ridgeline’s founding team

Building this vision requires exceptional leaders, and I could not be more proud and excited to build Ridgeline with my fellow co-founders:

• Aiyana Mourtos is Ridgeline’s Head of Program
• Erick Roa is Head of Strategy and Operations
• Bonnie Shea is Head of Communications and Marketing
  

Together, they bring this rare combination of expertise. They know how to design programs that inspire, prepare, and support students, and they know how to build strategies and systems that align employers, schools, colleges, and community partners to succeed at scale. Few intermediary organizations have both capabilities under one roof.

I’m also grateful to our founding board members:

• Paul Keys, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Bay Ed Fund
• Kai Kung, CEO at San Joaquin A+
• Elissa Salas, Chief Strategy Officer at SkillUp Coalition
  

You can read more about our founding team and board on our website here.

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Meet HealthX Fellow Anthony Pablo

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Thank you to our partners and funders

Once again, we could not have an impact without amazing partners, like:

• Cal Poly Maritime Academy
• Contra Costa College
• Kaiser Permanente School of Allied Health Sciences
• Working Waterfront Coalition
  

Along with incredible funders over the past two years who helped us launch our career pathways work, like:

• Contra Costa County Workforce Development Board
• Ignite Fund of the Roberts Foundation
• John H. and Regina K. Scully Foundation
• Payette River Foundation
• Tipping Point Community
• Wareham Development

Please spread the word!

• Follow Ridgeline on LinkedIn.
• Like, repost, or comment on my LinkedIn post here.
• Share this Ridgeline announcement with your network.
• Forward this email to a friend or colleague who would be interested.
• Support Ridgeline's launch. To learn more about becoming a founding donor or partner to support Ridgeline’s work connecting young people to high-demand jobs and employers to job-ready talent, please reply here.
  

I’m energized by this work, and I’m so glad you’re a part of it!

Pat

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Pat O'Donnell (he/him)
CEO and Co-Founder | Ridgeline
ridgelinepathways.org

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Ridgeline on LinkedIn | Ridgeline on Instagram | Ridgeline on YouTube

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