In an interview with Invest:, Clay Jenkins, county judge for Dallas County, talked about effective strategies for crisis management, emphasizing the importance of staying calm, treating people with empathy and relying on expert advice. He highlights the county’s focus on growing sectors such as green jobs, financial services, medicine and law, aiming to create a strong and diverse economy.
What strategies are most effective for the county in regard to crisis management?
People rarely make the best decisions during a crisis when they feel they are being attacked or demeaned. It is very important to stay calm as the leader and treat people as you would want to be treated if you were in their shoes and to empathize with them. Within a crisis management team, it is important to not meet individuals on the team for the first time at the crisis so we are constantly training for various scenarios so that people know each other well to work together. We are going to follow the science and listen to people that have trained their entire lives for whatever is going on like epidemiologists for instance as it relates to the pandemic.
What business sectors would you like to see grow in your area?
We have an opportunity to grow green jobs, which are good paying with benefits for people who don’t necessarily have college degrees. We are growing in financial services, medicine and law — we are playing to our strengths. The key to having a strong society is having jobs up and down the income and education stratum so we have to look for those living wage jobs that pay good benefits because that is going to lead to a stronger economy for all of us.
What is the county’s role when it comes to workforce development?
I am the chief elected official for workforce solutions for Greater Dallas. Within that, we have a lot of initiatives that revolve around childcare. The childcare group which is one of the largest beneficiaries of the grant money that we put through workforce solutions and actually has a task force that evaluates how we increase the quality of childcare. The county is also working on trying to get its first in-county childcare building.
We are also working with Dallas College on the Dallas County Promise. If you graduate from any public or charter school in the county, you can go to Dallas College tuition-free for two years in order to get your associate’s degree and then be able to go to UNT Dallas tuition-free. That is a big thing in workforce development in order to get kids ready.
One of the other areas of focus is working with our mental health providers. Middle school and high schoolers are suffering more now with depression, anxiety and issues that were really accelerated by the pandemic. If we do not take care of it early on, it will impact their learning and the workforce.
What are some projects you are excited about coming down the pipeline?
We are working on a race-neutral assessment for students in regard to mental health. The county is doing a lot with affordable housing, which is much needed and the county was able to do a lot through the American Rescue Plan act to seed fund a lot of our charities that are actively working in the community. We have also seeded Metrocare, the largest provider of mental health in Dallas County and North Texas outside of our jail system, so that they may build facilities to help people and have more space for treating people.
I’m an entrepreneur myself, so I know how hard it is for small businesses and startups. The majority of living wage jobs here in the county are small businesses with less than 100 employees. I want those companies to know that I am focused on doing things that benefit the growth of their companies because I recognize that’s where most of our people are working and we need those living wage jobs.
