Iowa Workforce Development director visits Cedar Rapids

Iowa Workforce Development Director Beth Townsend was in Cedar Rapids on Friday for the first time since she assumed leadership of the agency in mid-January.

Townsend was touring the regional workforce development office with Rep. Kirsten Running-Marquardt, D-Cedar Rapids, as well as Kirkwood Community College, meeting staff and discussing workforce development efforts.

She set the goal of visiting all 16 regional workforce development sites in the first 90 days of her time at the agency, adding Cedar Rapids marked the ninth site visit.Townsend will be visiting Spencer, Ottumwa and Waterloo next week.

The Cedar Rapids site offers job training, educational services and soft skills training along with providing unemployment benefits.

'Because the unemployment level is so low, the people who are unemployed are the people with the most barriers to overcome,” she said.

Townsend is a lawyer and a U.S. Air Force veteran who took over the troubled state agency after former IWD director Teresa Wahlert retired in January.

The Gazette reported in January that Wahlert's departure came amid contentions the department had become a hostile work environment where overworked administrative law judges felt their judicial independence had been improperly threatened under a business-friendly leadership team.

Townsend has been working toward improving employee morale and the department's reputation.