🔒With new partnership, added office space, and future expansion in mind, Girls For Technology to play bigger workforce development role

While workforce diversity, equity and inclusion has received heightened attention since 2020, it was on Sabrina Tucker-Barrett’s mind years earlier.

Shortly after moving to the Greater Hartford area, Tucker-Barrett said she saw a need to help encourage, mentor and influence young girls and women of color, especially in the areas of science, technology, engineering and math.

So in 2015 — with more than a decade of public and private sector leadership experience under her belt, primarily in healthcare administration, and with the support of her husband Anthony Barrett, who had a background with several nonprofits — Tucker-Barrett co-founded Hartford-based Girls For Technology, a nonprofit that helps girls and young women gain interest in STEM careers and entrepreneurship.

“I had worked in the insurance industry for a while, but I was not moving up the corporate ladder as I had envisioned as a woman of color,” said the 41-year-old Tucker-Barrett, who previously worked for ConnectiCare and UnitedHealth Group. “I wanted to do something after moving into the Hartford region that was impactful. I really started seeing a lot of inequities in the Hartford region that I did not see in the New London/Waterford area where I was from. I wanted to be able to have an impact within education and I have a love for technology.”

Since its inception, the nonprofit has helped more than 3,000 girls and women by offering STEM-based skills training programs and other support, and attracted strong financial backing from the state, city of Hartford and more than 20 corporate sponsors.

Now the nonprofit is focusing on major growth initiatives, including launching operations in other states.

Locally, it recently formed a high-profile partnership with IT firm GalaxE.Solutions, through which it will help train dozens of local residents in underserved communities for Hartford-based tech jobs.

And at a time when many Hartford employers are downsizing space, Girls For Technology is preparing to add square footage downtown when it moves later this year from its current 2,220-square-foot location at 750 Main St., to 10,000 square feet in the Stilts Building, at 20 Church St.

The space will be used for training, administrative offices and programming.

The nonprofit is also planning a presence in the ambitious Parkville Arts & Innovation District redevelopment, which is centered on creating a workforce pipeline for advanced manufacturing jobs.

“Our short-term goal is to continue to see the organization grow,” said Tucker-Barrett, whose nonprofit will have five full-time employees at the end of April with plans to bring on five more workers by the end of this year.

Pipeline building

Girls For Technology focuses on three programs: its K-12 youth initiative; Building for Equity; and Pipeline 4.0. They are all aimed at helping young girls and women in the areas of entrepreneurship and gaining an interest in technology-based careers, where demand for jobs is expected to be significant in the years ahead.

According to the state Department of Labor, computer and math-related jobs in Connecticut are projected to grow 14.6% over a 10-year period through 2028, to 44,585 jobs with an average annual salary of $92,206. The IT sector has also been identified as an industry that’s suffered from a longer-term labor shortage in the state.

The nonprofit’s K-12 initiative provides after-school enrichment programs and homework assistance. Building for Equity provides business accelerator services for entrepreneurs and small businesses, including a pitch competition that pays out cash rewards. Pipeline 4.0 helps train young people between the ages of 18 to 29 for IT support or technical jobs like graphic design.

The pipeline program drew the attention of IT firm GalaxE.Solutions, which announced in February it would be hiring 60 young people who graduate from it.

It’s part of GalaxE.Solutions’ larger goal of adding 180 employees in Hartford.

The 10-week course allows trainees to gain professional and technical skills through hybrid instruction, career coaching, mentorship and other avenues. All Hartford residents with either a high school diploma or GED are eligible to apply, and the city of Hartford is supporting the partnership with a $600,000 American Rescue Plan grant.

The growth in programming has bolstered Girls For Technology’s budget, which is growing from $350,000 last year to $751,000 in 2022, due in large part to ongoing partnerships with the city, state and an expanding roster of corporate sponsors.

But Tucker-Barrett said her most ambitious long-term goal is to expand operations beyond Connecticut.

“We are a small organization now, but one day I’d like to see us as a global organization,” she said, adding there are plans to expand into Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Houston in the years ahead.

Corporate support

Tucker-Barrett said the key to Girls For Technology’s success has been public and private sector support.

Since 2015, it has raised about $3.2 million in grant, foundation, and state and city funding. The money goes back into programming, she said.

The group’s most impactful financial backers are the state and corporations like New Britain’s Stanley Black & Decker, Travelers Cos., aerospace company Kaman Corp. in Bloomfield and Tolland-based CNC Software. They are companies that have major philanthropic arms but also a need to groom more tech workers.

Laura Hood, CNC Software’s chief administrative officer, said her company became a Girls For Technology sponsor because of the nonprofit’s mission.

“We are extremely proud of what they do. Their company’s values align with our mission,” Hood said. “Girls For Technology focuses on two of our favorite things, which is empowering women and addressing the skills gap in technology and manufacturing.”

Hood said CNC has been a sponsor for about five years, but declined to discuss any financial arrangements.

“We are also impressed with their organization in that they have a female CEO, as do we,” Hood said. “Empowering women in the field of technology, which is predominantly male-dominated, is super important to us. We will continue to work closely with them into the future.”

Parkville presence

Girls For Technology is also one of many organizations looking to be part of the city of Hartford’s ambitious Parkville Arts & Innovation District redevelopment plan.

Part of the $242 million public-private initiative hinges on obtaining funding from the state’s Innovation Corridor Program, which tasks the Department of Economic and Community Development with picking two or more transformational development proposals in major urban areas for grants of up to $50 million each.

The city of Hartford has officially submitted its program application, connecting it with efforts to turn the Parkville neighborhood into an advanced manufacturing hub. It is seeking $48.4 million in state grant funding to leverage $194 million in private investment in order to boost residential development, job training and advanced manufacturing in the neighborhood.

A key project in the plan includes formation of the “Powerhouse,” a new center of workforce and talent development to be located within a vacant building at 45 Bartholomew Ave.

The plan includes creating over 33,000 square feet of shared flexible, multi-purpose spaces so that Powerhouse members, including Girls For Technology, can conduct workshops and other workforce training alongside higher-ed organizations like UConn, Trinity College and the University of Hartford.

The hope is the facility will be ready for occupancy by the winter of 2024, Tucker-Barrett said. The proposed project would cost $17.2 million, about a third of which would be covered by state innovation grants.

The goal is for the Powerhouse initiative to serve 500 young people a year, Tucker-Barrett said.

“Working in that building will give opportunities for young people to not only get a higher education, but we are also hoping to train them in the areas of technology and game design,” she said.