Meryl Kordower
1:38:18
Good morning, everyone.
1:38:19
My name is Merrill Cordova, and I'm the vice president for our workforce services at NetApp.
1:38:25
I wanna thank the committee for the opportunity to testify today.
1:38:29
Founded in 1971, Natap is a nonprofit organization that focuses and helps approximately 35,000 New Yorkers, both adult and youth across all five boroughs in Long Island.
1:38:45
The central focus of our work is helping New Yorkers who experience multiple barriers to employment and a promising career, primarily due to long histories of unemployment, lack of education, training, vocational skills, histories of substance use in our mental health and other disorders.
1:39:07
Over the past 7 years, NATO has had the privilege of working closely with HRA and operating 2 career compass programs, 1 in Harlem and the other in Bushwick East Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
1:39:21
Our career could serve our career compass programs as part of HRA's career pathways initiative was initially designed as an in person services program, offering cash assistance applicants and recipients an introduction to HRA and the career services program.
1:39:40
Including all of its overall training, job placement, and educational offerings.
1:39:48
In 2020, as a result of COVID, we pivoted to a fully remote voluntary program.
1:39:55
During that time, NetApp created an online learning management system, learn at NetApp, where participants in all of our programs had access to more than a 100 employment preparation financial literacy, skill building, and vocational assessment workshops that were available to our clients 247.
1:40:18
Currently, we are back in mandatory
