Joseph P. Walsh, Jr. was appointed by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty as the permanent director of the DC Department of Employment Services, one of the city’s largest government departments and the District's lead agency for labor and workforce development issues.
Prior to his appointment in December 2008, Mr. Walsh served as the director of Policy and Planning in the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in Governor Deval Patrick's Administration. During his tenure, Mr. Walsh developed and executed new workforce initiatives that helped meet the Governor and Secretary's goals to close the skills-gap and increase participation of youth in the labor force, and he was instrumental in launching Massachusetts’s Regional Workforce Strategy Initiative to better align the state’s education system with the workers and job seekers’ needs. Prior to that, Walsh served as the chief of staff /operations advisor to the Division of Unemployment Assistance, a 600-person agency.
Mr. Walsh has worked extensively on economic development, community revitalization and city planning issues. He served as the director of the Department of Planning, Community and Economic Development in the city of Salem, Massachusetts. There he developed and managed the city's job creation, housing, transportation and neighborhood revitalization plans and helped to establish the new Economic Development Program, which included the city’s first “Main Streets” program.
During the Clinton Administration, Mr. Walsh served as the Education Director of the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships. There he directed the education program for one of the nation’s most prestigious fellowships for leadership and public service, developing the program’s curriculum and coordinating Fellow’s briefings and events with the White House, cabinet agencies, the Congress of the United States, and District government agencies. He has taught politics, government affairs and civic participation skills to high school students at the Close-Up Foundation in Washington, DC. He has also served as a consultant to numerous organizations on government relations and public policy, including the DATA Foundation where he was a lead organizer on a tour of the US with musician and activist Bono to help raise awareness of the AIDS crisis in Africa.
Mr. Walsh earned his Master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science at the College of the Holy Cross. He resides in Washington, DC.
