Albert Lea Assistant City Manager Jerry Gabrielatos and United Way of Freeborn County Executive Director Ann Austin are working to ensure local racial divides are lessened.

The two leaders will attend Equity Works Leadership Institute, an eight-week session that will take place in January, February, March and June at the University of Minnesota.

The goal of the program is to help facilitate the implementation of equity and inclusion policies that address racial inequalities within Minnesota’s workforce development sector.

“Our workforce is becoming more diverse,” Austin said. “To grow as a region, as a community throughout Freeborn County, we need to welcome that diversity, we need to look at the policy and environmental aspects of workplaces and how our community functions so that we can adapt to changing workforce needs.”

“It will be a good opportunity for us to network with people who are facing the same challenges,” Gabrielatos said.

The course will include how history, public policy, institutional practices and implicit beliefs maintain systems of inequality.

Austin said she has seen promising structural changes at local businesses relating to reducing inequalities in the workplace environment and acknowledged that not adopting practices meant to reduce inequality would be “devastating” to the community.

Attracting people of color to the community could also help alleviate a workforce shortage, Austin said.

As Albert Lea becomes more diverse, it makes sense for local leaders to work with communities that have had diverse populations for a long time, Austin said, adding that efforts to market to people of color need to focus on engaging the specific culture being reached out to.

She said the community can draw people in, but must be welcoming on a long-term basis so people who move to the community feel comfortable raising their families there. 

Austin cited Karen members of the local community who used to drive from St. Paul to Albert Lea but have moved to the area and stated because of a supportive environment.