Jillian Sandoval, Electric Girls' New Executive Director!
The Board of Directors and staff of Electric Girls are pleased to announce and welcome
Jillian Sandoval as the organization’s incoming Executive Director. Please click here to read our official announcement letter from our Board of Directors. We invite you to welcome Jillian to the team, and get to know her and her story better by reading her biography, below:
Jillian Sandoval
"I grew up in Longview, a small town in East Texas about an hour west of Shreveport. Although it’s a growing community now, Longview’s best known for three things: country music, Matthew McConaughey, and big trucks. So I fell in love with New Orleans early-on in life. From that first time I crossed the bridge over Lake Pontchartrain, watching the skyline finally come into view, I felt a pull that only people who live here can fully explain. I just knew that one day I would call New Orleans home.
I first became involved in nonprofits as a service recipient of a workforce development program in Portland, called Oregon Tradeswomen. This was before Katrina, during a particularly challenging period in my life. Through this program I learned basic skills in carpentry, plumbing, and electrical work in a group of around 20 women. We were from many different backgrounds and all walks of life: some were single mothers, looking for a better career opportunity to support their families. Some were just out of high school, not really sure if college were even an option. Most of us had zero background in construction, besides ‘general labor’ jobs like sweeping up the worksites. We had definitely never used power tools before. But we were all in it together. We made mistakes, and we learned from each other. We built and raised the walls for a house together. We wore awkward hazmat suits and went through 40 hours of OSHA training together. We worked outside of class on math homework and projects. And we all finished together. After I graduated from the program, I was set to start an apprenticeship in the sheet metal trade. Then, Katrina hit. Heartbroken and devastated, I returned to New Orleans and became an AmeriCorps member with Project Homecoming, a New Orleans-based nonprofit organization that formed post-Katrina to help families rebuild and return to their homes.
I worked with families with harrowing stories- families who were uprooted and displaced into unfamiliar places; who were elderly, disabled, and often victims of contractor fraud - who, for one reason or another, did not receive sufficient funding through Road Home or insurance to rebuild and come back home. Compelled by understanding these structural inequities, I went back to school to pursue a degree that would build the foundation for a career in nonprofit administration."
Over the next two years, Jillian would work all day on a construction site, and then, covered in sawdust and sweat, run to Tulane to take night classes. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences and Health in 2013.
After being promoted into leading Project Homecoming’s AmeriCorps program for three years, Jillian joined Evacuteer as program and volunteer manager, where she led all of the marketing, volunteer recruitment, and outreach programming for the organization, including a youth program designed to teach kids the basic science behind weather, subsidence, coastal erosion, and ground them in emergency preparedness and resiliency skills. Taking on the executive director role at Evacuteer felt like a natural step in her pursuit of building equity and understanding nonprofit administration in a small, close knit organization - Jillian became well versed in fiscal management, board engagement, strategic planning, community partnerships, city government, information technology, marketing, and development. She’s currently pursuing her masters in public administration at the University of New Orleans, with a specialization in nonprofit leadership.
“I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to join Electric Girls, and excited to get to know and strengthen relationships with the staff, volunteers, board members, parents, students, and community partners! From my personal experience as a woman working in mostly male-dominated fields, it is one of my deepest convictions that women and girls should not only have a seat at any table we choose, but that we should also know that we can build that table. Electric Girls provides the safe and inclusive environment that girls need to explore, learn from each other, and assert new ideas. I am fascinated and inspired by Electric Girls’ mission to build generations of confident women by sparking girls’ curiosity in STEM, teaching them real, translatable skills, and giving them the encouragement they need so that they may grow up to pursue any career that they choose- because no career should seem unattainable simply because societal standards tell us that it is so. I could not be more proud to have been selected to lead and serve alongside the Electric Girls community, and I look forward to helping the organization continue to grow into the future.”
Welcome to the team, Jillian!
Jillian Sandoval as the organization’s incoming Executive Director. Please click here to read our official announcement letter from our Board of Directors. We invite you to welcome Jillian to the team, and get to know her and her story better by reading her biography, below:
Jillian Sandoval
"I grew up in Longview, a small town in East Texas about an hour west of Shreveport. Although it’s a growing community now, Longview’s best known for three things: country music, Matthew McConaughey, and big trucks. So I fell in love with New Orleans early-on in life. From that first time I crossed the bridge over Lake Pontchartrain, watching the skyline finally come into view, I felt a pull that only people who live here can fully explain. I just knew that one day I would call New Orleans home.
I first became involved in nonprofits as a service recipient of a workforce development program in Portland, called Oregon Tradeswomen. This was before Katrina, during a particularly challenging period in my life. Through this program I learned basic skills in carpentry, plumbing, and electrical work in a group of around 20 women. We were from many different backgrounds and all walks of life: some were single mothers, looking for a better career opportunity to support their families. Some were just out of high school, not really sure if college were even an option. Most of us had zero background in construction, besides ‘general labor’ jobs like sweeping up the worksites. We had definitely never used power tools before. But we were all in it together. We made mistakes, and we learned from each other. We built and raised the walls for a house together. We wore awkward hazmat suits and went through 40 hours of OSHA training together. We worked outside of class on math homework and projects. And we all finished together. After I graduated from the program, I was set to start an apprenticeship in the sheet metal trade. Then, Katrina hit. Heartbroken and devastated, I returned to New Orleans and became an AmeriCorps member with Project Homecoming, a New Orleans-based nonprofit organization that formed post-Katrina to help families rebuild and return to their homes.
I worked with families with harrowing stories- families who were uprooted and displaced into unfamiliar places; who were elderly, disabled, and often victims of contractor fraud - who, for one reason or another, did not receive sufficient funding through Road Home or insurance to rebuild and come back home. Compelled by understanding these structural inequities, I went back to school to pursue a degree that would build the foundation for a career in nonprofit administration."
Over the next two years, Jillian would work all day on a construction site, and then, covered in sawdust and sweat, run to Tulane to take night classes. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences and Health in 2013.
After being promoted into leading Project Homecoming’s AmeriCorps program for three years, Jillian joined Evacuteer as program and volunteer manager, where she led all of the marketing, volunteer recruitment, and outreach programming for the organization, including a youth program designed to teach kids the basic science behind weather, subsidence, coastal erosion, and ground them in emergency preparedness and resiliency skills. Taking on the executive director role at Evacuteer felt like a natural step in her pursuit of building equity and understanding nonprofit administration in a small, close knit organization - Jillian became well versed in fiscal management, board engagement, strategic planning, community partnerships, city government, information technology, marketing, and development. She’s currently pursuing her masters in public administration at the University of New Orleans, with a specialization in nonprofit leadership.
“I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to join Electric Girls, and excited to get to know and strengthen relationships with the staff, volunteers, board members, parents, students, and community partners! From my personal experience as a woman working in mostly male-dominated fields, it is one of my deepest convictions that women and girls should not only have a seat at any table we choose, but that we should also know that we can build that table. Electric Girls provides the safe and inclusive environment that girls need to explore, learn from each other, and assert new ideas. I am fascinated and inspired by Electric Girls’ mission to build generations of confident women by sparking girls’ curiosity in STEM, teaching them real, translatable skills, and giving them the encouragement they need so that they may grow up to pursue any career that they choose- because no career should seem unattainable simply because societal standards tell us that it is so. I could not be more proud to have been selected to lead and serve alongside the Electric Girls community, and I look forward to helping the organization continue to grow into the future.”
Welcome to the team, Jillian!
|
|