Building a Pathway to College & Career with Matt Mahood

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability and to correct obvious transcription errors while preserving the meaning of the original conversation.

Episode 96 — Building a Pathway to College & Career with Matt Mahood
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Matt Mahood
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.842 Brandon Burton
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.
00:15.624 Brandon Burton
Player with Steve. My dad, Brandon Burton. Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. I'm Brandon Burton, your host, and you are joining us today for episode 96 of Chamber Chat Podcast. Our guest today is Matt Mahood, who is the president and CEO of what the local media calls the Silicon Valley's flagship business lobby, which is a Silicon Valley organization. He's Been the present CEO there at the SVO since July of 2011. The SVO, formerly the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce, has re-engineered its scope of work to focus all efforts around regional economic development. Matt has increased member value and community relevance by becoming a leader in the regional discussions of key issues that impact the business community's ability to attract, retain, Retract and attain talented workforce while growing their business. With his leadership, the SVO has become the region's connector, convener, collaborator, and champion on issues that affect business and the community's prosperity. No stranger to taking charge, Matt has also pushed the SVO into the workforce development space, launching Strive San Jose. Strive San Jose convenes the education sector. Business and government to help create, guide, and influence the talent pipeline to ensure a talented workforce that will allow their businesses to continue to innovate and grow. Matt's extensive background as an executive in business operations spans over three decades in both the for and nonprofit sectors. His business career began at UPS, later joining FedEx, BAX Global, and Webvan.com. in various management level positions focused on operations, customer service, sales, human resources, marketing, and general management. He previously served as the president and CEO of the Sacramento Metro Chamber, my hometown, for nearly a decade, helping to spearhead the efforts with the mayor's office to retain the Kings in Sacramento, being named Executive of the Year.
02:35.842 Brandon Burton
By Western Association of Chamber Executives. Matt is a California native and has a deep passion for ensuring that California remains the economic engine of the United States. He earned his bachelor's in business administration in organizational communication and public relations from Cal State University, East Bay. I'm excited and grateful to have Matt with us today on. Chamber Chat Podcast to talk a little bit more about the talent and workforce development in their area as we talk about building a pathway to college or career. And we will get into this discussion as soon as we get back from this brief message. Every chamber is looking for new ways to increase their non-dues revenue. Has your chamber found a good affinity program? I have a great affinity program to offer your chamber. That will continue to increase in revenue year after year. I want to introduce you to Swipe It for all of your credit card processing needs. Swipeit has a unique affinity program that 1. Lowers your credit card processing fees at the chamber, 2, helps your chamber members be more profitable, and 3 provides recurring non-dues revenue to your chamber. To learn more, please visit chamberchatpodcast.com. com slash C C for credit card. Again, Chamberchatpodcast.com slash C C and get swiping with swipe it. All right, Matt, we are back. Thank you for joining us today here on the Chamber Chat Podcast. If you would take a moment to say hello to all the chamber champions that are out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little bit better.
04:27.298 Matt Mahood
Well, hello, Brandon, and hello, Chamber Champions. it's great to be with you today. something interesting about myself is I I'm actually six foot seven inches tall, and which puts me on the tall side. I'm I'm fairly slender. and the interesting thing is I was always a better baseball player than a basketball player. And I always get the question, you know, hey, did you play basketball? And unfortunately I didn't pick up a basketball until really late. So I I I did not play basketball. I played a little bit of baseball, but even that I wasn't good enough to go too far in. But that's the one thing that's interesting about me.
05:07.274 Brandon Burton
Yeah. I mean you can always say yes, you played basketball. It's just a matter of what level, you know, if it was in somebody's driveway or in the NBA, who knows, you know.
05:16.223 Matt Mahood
I never made it really out of the driveway.
05:18.67 Brandon Burton
That's right. Well, tell us a little bit about the the SVO. give us a little more perspective as to where you're coming from as we get into this discussion today. Maybe the size, location, budget, things like that, just so we we know where you're coming from.
05:35.436 Matt Mahood
Yeah, thank you for that. You know, the Silicon Valley Organization, we are we are located in downtown San Jose. San Jose is the tenth largest city in United States. a lot of people don't know that, but we do have a population in in San Jose of just over a million people. We're located in Santa Clara County, where we have about 2.5 million residents in Santa Clara County, which is really the the center of Silicon Valley. Which is a huge economic driver for not just the state of California, but the United States and the globe, really the world's capital of innovation. And we are the Chamber of Commerce, we're a regional organization pre-COVID. Our total staff level was about 18 folks, and our budget in 2020 was planned to be about four and a half million dollars. A lot of that has changed in the COVID, post-COVID world, smaller staff, smaller budget, as we've kind of repositioned ourselves to match kind of the the economic reality that's happening to many small businesses here. we we do a lot of networking events. We do the community development work, we do economic development, business retention expansion work. we do some work in the startup space. we do a ton of advocacy. That is probably our strength at the city and the county level, on a on a pro-business advocacy standpoint. And you think, that doesn't need to happen in Silicon Valley. well, it does. and that's probably the strength of our our work, that and workforce development.
07:26.562 Brandon Burton
That's right. So you'd mentioned being there in the Santa Clara area and just being a California native myself. I grew up as a huge 49er fan. In fact, the the introduction to this episode, my son Brody introduced the show, talking about how my favorite player was Steve Young. So I I did a little research about the Silicon Valley organization and saw that. You guys rightly have the Forty Niners as a member of your organization. So kudos to you. That that that's good there. But thanks for for sharing.
08:06.526 Matt Mahood
The San Francisco 49ers are a a great member, as are the the San Jose Sharks and and the Golden State Warriors and yeah as the San Jose Earthquakes, our local MLS team. So we're proud to have all of them as members of our organization.
08:21.792 Brandon Burton
Yes, absolutely. You guys definitely sit there in a a prime, I guess you can say real estate location as you talked about kind of being in the center of the economic world, you know, not just in your community, but but in the world economic scope. So with that, let's we'll transition a little bit into more of the discussion for our our topic today, which is building a pathway. To career or college. So you guys are in that kind of hot zone economically speaking. have a lot of great companies that are are members of your organization that lead to some good partnerships, I imagine. And and I'm sure we'll hear a little bit more about that. But tell us a little bit about well, I guess let me back up in your introduction as I as I went through your bio, I'd mentioned the Strive San Jose. So I know Strive San Jose kind of helped, you know, bring the education sector and and business and government together to to help the the youth in the in the school districts in your area. So if you would tell us a little bit about that program and kind of the roots as to what the need was and and how that came to be.
09:43.202 Matt Mahood
Yeah, so back in about 2014, I had been here for a couple years, and we had had a workforce and education committee, a workforce development and education committee. And we were doing a lot of work trying to shape local policy and county and state policies around education and trying to figure out how we can move the needle to prepare. kids to be ready to work in in Silicon Valley. And we really found the effort to be kind of slow moving and and not not getting a lot of satisfaction from our effort. So a couple of our members challenged us to say, what could you do differently to really impact the youth in in the greater San Jose area? And the reason they were challenging us is because in Silicon Valley we have created incredible wealth. through these tech companies that have just been hugely successful on a global scale. We've we we have people from all over the world coming to work here, coming to live here. But there are portions of our community, especially in San Jose, especially on the east side of San Jose, where we've left these kids behind. they just have not been getting the education and the skills they need to be successful and really this technology and innovation ecosystem. So we were challenged to figure out you know, how do we how do we address this? At the same time, mayor of the mayor of San Jose, Mayor Sam Liccardo, was convening some folks around trying to figure out how do you it really impact. youth who are not who are having a negative experience because they're growing up in gang impacted neighborhoods or they're growing up in poverty and they just don't have a way out. So we started partnering, and there was the mayor put together a task force that looked at this issue and and things that we could do. At the same time, the the SVO, we were working on putting together this program that became called Strive San Jose.
12:05.056 Matt Mahood
And was really coming out of East Side Union High School District and figuring out how do we create literally a pathway for students to either college or career. And we started building this partnership out with the school district at the same time being challenged by the mayor to kind of come together. And so we we put together this program that included internships for students, career days. Teacher externships so they could get out into the workplace and see what skills kids are going to need. We've done all kinds of speaker panels. We got taught kids how to do interviewing skills, taught them how to build LinkedIn profiles, and taught them about financial literacy. And we started the program really in 2016 when it when it came together. And we've been going strong for about five years now.
13:01.598 Brandon Burton
All right. So I know across the country, I mean, a lot of chambers do these workforce and talent development to try to keep the workforce base there in their community. And I think you alluded to, as you're given that explanation, that there was it seems like there's a pretty wide gap with the extreme wealth that's created there with some of these tech companies versus some of these youth that are you know in these neighborhoods that. may gravitate more towards gangs and than trying to get into technology and and that. So it ends up being a a large gap. So as you were explaining that, it sounds like it's more than just trying to keep talent in the area, but really trying to find a a path to be able to help these youth, you know, kind of see a way for their future.
13:53.622 Matt Mahood
Yeah, the the mayor coined a term early on in the process that he said, let's build resumes, not rap sheets. Yeah. And that really took hold. And what what really happened over the course of time is we focused on in the partnership with the school district and with the city that really stepped up. So we created this private public partnership. And then the the SVO, we brought our member, our business members to the table too. So, what we've created is this opportunity for these kids to engage with potential employers down the road. And since the program started, we've engaged over 4,000 underserved youth with local employers. And of these 4,000 kids, 77% of them live in close proximity or in a gang hotspot, and 23% of them. Live in high poverty areas. Additionally, 50% of the students come from a Latino Latin X background, and 35% of them are Asian Pacific Islander. So you're looking at a community that is probably underrepresented in technology and the innovation economy. And we've been able to connect those kids through internships. Through these work-based learning experiences to really show them a pathway that if they continue their education, they can find their way out and get an opportunity either immediately into a manufacturing job here in Silicon Valley, or they can go on to college and get the education they need to come back and work in Silicon Valley.
15:44.878 Brandon Burton
So how did this look as you started? It sounded like the mayor was on board and was it sounds like a a good driver of this initiative, but how did you go about getting in with the school districts and the and the business community as well to kind of connect everybody?
16:00.312 Matt Mahood
Well, we have a a a great superintendent of our school district who had a great vision. He had been sitting on our workforce education policy committee and was part of the conversation and said, You know, I think I can find some funding to help seed this program. And the mayor's office through their efforts said, I think we can find an off we can find some funding to pay for some internships. so the the school district stepped up. Help pay for a staff member to work at the SVO. The city started creating a pot of money where we could pay these kids through internships into a foundation that the city had. And our job at the chamber was to take this staff person and be the connector. And we invited our members to the table to create internship opportunities for these kids. So we started with a six-week summer internship program. getting local employers to create these internships. The city paid the students to be in the internships. So it cost the employer nothing. And the school district was just creating the pipeline and the access for us to get into the kids and get into that the the pool of kids who are interested, whether they're in career tech ed or they were just in a identified as being in a in a gang hot spot. And so we kind of it's kind of this mix, unusual mix of kids. But we started our first year with only forty-one internships. by the next year, we went to a hundred and seventy-eight internships. And by year three, we're at a hundred and eighty-six internships. And by then we'd also got two other school districts involved as well.
17:46.636 Brandon Burton
That's awesome. So that kind of shows how they get into the internships and into the businesses. And I imagine some of those internships kind of sprout the ideas of this is I'd like to go to college to be able to further my career path with a company like this. Is that where a lot of the conversations come up as far as you know directing towards college? Is it through the internship or is it something that's going on at the school district by getting them involved with the program?
18:15.374 Matt Mahood
So the two parts are some of these kids are coming from career tech ed pipelines. So they're already having an idea that they're gonna go to college, but they're not specific as to what they want to go do. And the others are really kids that are being challenged who are really have no direction. They don't they, I mean, they're not even sure they're gonna graduate in high school. so it's kind of this interesting mix and this blend of kids that we bring into the program. and based on Their interest, we match them with potential internships. And they go through an interview process. The potential companies interview these kids, and kids are offered, every kid is offered an internship. It just depends where that certain employer is going to offer them a job. And we have like a 95% satisfaction rate from the kids and the same level of satisfaction from our employers. So very high. satisfaction rate from both the employer side and from the intern side, saying it was a good match. The main industries tend to be healthcare, construction, technology, manufacturing, and finance and accounting. So we we put those kids in the programs, but before we even put them in the program, we teach them some soft skills. one, so they know how to interview, so they better know how to communicate in a professional environment, so they know how to dress. and we also give them a little bit of financial literacy so they know how to what to do with their money once they get paid.
19:53.526 Brandon Burton
That's awesome. So is that something where you're going into the schools to help them with the interview with the soft skills you're talking about? Yeah.
20:01.324 Matt Mahood
They we do these big giant career fairs and we do these seminars with the kids. And we've we've taken all the one time we took all the kids over to SAP Center where the San Jose Sharks play. We were hosted by the sharks and put on a job fair one day. another day we took all the kids, a couple busloads of the kids over to the LinkedIn campus, and they all got professional. profile photos taken and got their LinkedIn profiles is probably better than my LinkedIn profile. Love it. But great getting these employers involved and really building these new partnerships, it's really been wonderful. And these kids get to see what it's like you know, walking in the place of, you know, these technology employers or just even a construction company and understanding what's it like to show up every day. Now, with that said, during COVID, all of this changed. And this last year we had to take our program into a virtual format. so we actually end up doing virtual internships this summer. and it allowed actually a different kind of employer to get involved because there is liability when you're putting a minor into the workplace. So there's you know liability agreements and insurance and all of those things. but because we don't have these minors going into the workplace and their work is being done virtually now, it's actually allowed us to get into more technology economies. And this summer, Cisco really stepped up and took I think about 25 interns this year to really expand the put the program and do the program virtually. And we had a lot of success with them and we're able to get more kids into the technology industry than previously.
21:53.43 Brandon Burton
That is neat. Hearing how how that shift was able to really kind of amplify rather than take a step backwards necessarily. You're able to amplify and look for the opportunity through that. I was gonna ask what what it's like as you try to attract new businesses to participate in this program. I can just see, you know, we're we're gonna take these youth from these, you know. gang infested neighborhoods and we want them to do an internship at your business. I I know that's not how you approach it, but being able to show the ninety five percent satisfaction both on the the intern and the business, I think it speaks volumes for the success of it. But how do you go about trying to attract new businesses to participate in the internship program?
22:40.698 Matt Mahood
through a lot of outreach and that's why we have two people on staff within our foundation and I I should have mentioned this earlier, but we do do this work through our foundation side because it's easier to attract funding into the 501c3. that way we can get the school district to fund the program through that. We're able to fundraise to pay for additional staff people who help support the program from the private sector. But those staff members do outreach throughout the year. Trying to recruit new employers. I do outreach. other staff people on our team do outreach. And we give testimonials from other employers who have been involved, as well as testimonials from the students to so they can say, This is what it was like from my eyes and what my experience was like. And I will tell you that when we when we by the time we get these kids, at least when we were doing this in person, my favorite day was the interview day when we would Bring a hundred employers out to interview 150 kids or 200 kids, depending on how many we had in the program that year. And I'd watch all these kids show up to interview day. And they'd be in their best clothes, haircut, hair, you know, groomed, looking sharp. And then sitting down with these employers, it literally makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up because I can see the impact that we're having. And it's such a positive experience. And our employers say, you know, these kids come in, they're eager, they're willing. these are kids who are trying to find a you know a better life for themselves. And it's it actually makes a difference. So it feels really good from a chamber side to know that we're having a positive impact.
24:30.838 Brandon Burton
Yeah, as you're describing that, I'm visualizing in my head, you know, about 200 youth showing up, kind of nervous, you know, putting themselves together the best they can. And and I see them in my mind's eye, leaving with a a sense of confidence, you know, they were able to present themselves and and hopefully landed a an internship with the company that can really help put them on track for a brighter future. That's that is neat. I is there anything that I'm I'm missing in the in the program that you want to make sure that you touch on before we start wrapping up here? I d I don't wanna cut anything short.
25:09.144 Matt Mahood
No, I I think the I you know I I I I gave you a high level overview of the program. There's a lot of there's a lot of blocking and tackling that takes place behind the scenes to make this thing work. And you know, it really is a partnership between the school district, the city of San Jose and our organization. And, you know, we're the we're the driver behind it. But if we didn't have a mayor who was willing to help fund the program, if we didn't have a school district who was or school districts who were had enough vision to actually help us implement it, none of this would happen. So it really takes people coming together collaboratively on this private public effort to put it together. And it's not always smooth. there's a little bit of you know tension at times, but we always work through it for you know, really with the focused goal on mine to try to build this pathway for kids to either career or to college. And we don't get to make that choice. They get to make the choice for them. but it's definitely rewarding work.
26:20.114 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. I I love being able to talk to different chamber leaders throughout the country and especially when it comes to topics like this, being able to help youth see a kind of a glimpse of their potential and what their future could look like and be able to help put them in a path to to find that, I think is very commendable and appreciate the the work that you guys are doing there. And and I hope that as other chamber champions are out there listening. That they're able to take some kind of nugget, some kind of piece of of our discussion today. And maybe it's just looking at their community through a different lens and seeing where the needs are. And maybe they already have a workforce and talent development program at their organization, but maybe there's things that they can tweak to better serve the youth or the businesses or or the whole. so I appreciate you sharing everything that you've shared with us today. I would like to ask, kind of based on our discussion, if there is one piece of advice that you would put out there for chamber champion that's listening that they can do to help take their chamber up to the next level.
27:32.29 Matt Mahood
Well, I think that the challenge and and what this program came out of the a couple of our board members and a couple of our committee members who challenged us to think differently about how we were trying to solve a problem. we continue to do policy work in the education space, but it's very difficult, it's very challenging, it takes a lot of time to implement change there. and what we answered the call to do was to think about it differently and actually put a program in place that could actually put put our money where our mouth is and get us into the school district and in and actually making a difference. So I would encourage other chamber execs to think about some of the challenges that they're facing in their community and how and how you could address them differently and really make an impact. And you know, it doesn't have to be A hundred kids. It could be 10 kids in your community. It could start small. And our program started small, it got big. And then you know, we've had to reshape it and resize it over the course of the last five years. And it's continuing to evolve and morph. but being able to look at old problems in a new way, and just innovate, do something different and take the chance and you Obviously, you don't have to do it all yourself. You need partners. so that's what I'd encourage chamber execs to do. And and you don't have to do it all yourself. look for partners who can help you and you don't have to take all the credit. We don't take all the credit for this program. we pass a lot of credit to the mayor's office, we pass a lot of credit to the school district because it works together when we're all working together.
29:19.464 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. I think that's great advice. And I was wondering so right now we're in this state of new normal, right? hopefully soon enough we can get back to our old normal somewhat. And would you see with the internship programs, would would you see a virtual component sticking even once we get back to normal and can be, you know, around people in a more normal sense? Have you thought about that?
29:51.606 Matt Mahood
Yeah, we actually have thought about it because one of the challenges that we faced with this internship program was the transportation component of getting kids from their home to the employer, you know, several days a week over the when they were doing the six-week summer internship program. and it you typically we got them transit passes or kids would have other ways of getting around. and they they had to figure that out. but by going virtually. We eliminated that problem. so we also that allowed us to have kids not have to worry about the transit challenges. So it's allowed us to expand the number of companies that can get involved. And so it's it's opened up the the region a little bit more, creating more opportunities throughout the region for more employers to get involved because we don't have to worry about kids driving or being bust to a work location. So we do see a component of this moving forward.
30:52.94 Brandon Burton
Yeah. that's awesome. I hadn't even thought of that component of it with the the travel issue with the dealing with high school age kids.
31:01.378 Matt Mahood
Yeah. And again, it removed that the liability issue of having minors in the workplace. That was a challenge for some of our some of our employers. So it removed that liability challenge as well.
31:16.492 Brandon Burton
Yeah. So a question I like to ask everybody that I have on the podcast is we're all always looking to the future in regards to chambers. So as you look to the future, how do you see chambers of commerce and their purpose going forward?
31:32.898 Matt Mahood
Well, that's a tough question given the the new reality of you know COVID and you know when are we gonna come out of this? But I I honestly see our role now is more important than ever, trying to get our communities back to work. and how do we deal with the path pathogen? How do we mitigate risk? How do we safely reopen our economy? getting people back to work safely, having customers come into the workplace safely. there's an opportunity for chambers to take a leadership role in here, working with their city, working with their county, working with their state, to be that advocate and to be the connector between the private sector and the public sector. So there's a great role in the in that space of economic development right now. but there's also lot of financial challenges on on chambers. you know, a lot of our members are struggling, small businesses are struggling. They may or may not be able to renew their membership. so those are some of the financial challenges. So I would be encouraging part, you know, chambers to partner with other chambers to really try to come together with their chamber that's next to them and the city next to them or the county next to them and really try to build partnerships to show strength and alignment as you as you move forward.
33:00.456 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. I think that's a a good vision of the the immediate future of the chamber of kind of the chamber industry and what we need to be looking at. And and I think you're absolutely right that the chambers will play a key role in being able to help open back up. And even even if it has to be from an educational standpoint, if if chambers can kind of bond together and tell their governor that look, we'll be responsible for educating the businesses on how to safely reopen. I could see that as being a a real viable application. But Matt, I wanted to to thank you for for spending time with us here today. And if anyone listening wanted to reach out and connect with you about how you're doing things there at the at the Silicon Valley organization or or about anything you covered in this discussion today, what would be the best way for for them to reach out and connect with you?
33:57.958 Matt Mahood
way honestly it's probably by email right now because I'm working I'm working virtually some days and I'm working from the office some days. So the best way they can reach me is probably via email. And my email address is M A T T at T H E S V O dot com. It's the best way to get a hold of me I think.
34:23.19 Brandon Burton
All right. I will put that in our show notes for this episode, which will be found at chamberchatpodcast.comslash episode ninety-six. But Matt, I think you you've shared a great example of today with us of a great partnership between your city and school district and the business community. And I hope that everybody listening was able to take some some tips and nuggets out of this that you can apply to your own communities. Going along with with my whole goal of this podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to help you better serve your members and community. So thank you, Matt. I I really appreciate you being with us today.
35:02.21 Matt Mahood
My pleasure. Happy to do it.
35:05.024 Brandon Burton
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35:34.39 Brandon Burton
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