Welcome Back Marie Bruin – New Director for Workforce Education
“We are excited about the return of Marie Bruin as the new Director for Workforce Education at the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC). Marie worked with Centers of Excellence for many years as a Policy Associate with SBCTC and we were extremely fortunate to have Marie assigned as our Center’s lead Associate. Marie has the critical leadership qualities that make a Center Director’s job easy. She leads with wisdom, humility, courage, and resilience. She connects and engages with the people she works with and her intent was always to help people produce positive outcomes. She is the right person at the right time to help us all adapt to the changing environments and the challenges to come.” – Linda Crerar, Director, CoE-HSEM
The role of State Board staff is to work with Centers on implementing their goals and developing their work plans each year and providing assistance and feedback that will help us reach our program objectives and serve the need of our community-technical colleges. Before her new position, she was the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) Implementation Manager in the Workforce Initiatives Division at the Employment Security Department. Marie is no stranger to the SBCTC or Workforce Education as she used to be a Policy Associate for the department where she helped provide leadership and coordination for the Workforce in the community and technical college system. Marie has more than 20 years of comprehensive experience implementing and leading strategic Workforce initiatives, organizational change, supporting agency partnerships, and has played a key role in supporting access to workforce resources including registered apprenticeships, programs for youth, and resources for populations facing barriers.
Marie’s ability to develop trusting relationships with organizational leaders allows her to become a strategic partner with agency partners as they, together, build solutions to accomplishing both state and federal long- and short-range objectives.
She has held numerous leadership positions in the private sector and state government. Marie is a graduate of Advancing Leadership, leadership training for work, service, and life, and the Washington Executive Leadership Academy (WELA).