Meet our new Director of Member Services, Erika Allison. Erika’s “Berkshires story” is nothing short of a delicious romance. What started as a flirtation with the area through regular visits to Kripalu later turned into a full-blown engagement when she fell in love with a local and relocated to Great Barrington 18 month ago.
“I put my house on the market and it sold in 3 days, so I figured that was a sign that I was moving in the right direction!” says Erika about her relocation to the Berkshires from Maine, where she was directing a $15MM statewide partnership to strengthen STEM, education, and workforce development. “I spent a lot of my time in that position encouraging various groups to come together and collaborate. Maine is small and rural. We just couldn’t afford to have lots of tiny entities each moving in their own direction and expect to make any significant progress.”
Once she landed in the Berkshires, Erika began to learn how deeply the streams of regional partnerships run here. “One of my favorite things about the Berkshires is that this area already gets it! There is so much collaboration here. Important topics are addressed and discussed with representation from a diverse group of stakeholders bringing perspectives from all facets of the economy and the region. What’s happening here with the collective impact approach to regional development is truly innovative!”
Erika grew up in Texas and graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and a minor in business. She hired into the Dow Chemical Company’s commercial development program straight out of college and spent four years in Michigan and Chicago helping customers develop and improve products. She left the corporate world to become a teacher. “I looked around and realized that my energy could be better spent helping to enable more people, especially underrepresented populations, gain access to STEM careers. I wanted to see more diversity when I looked around at my colleagues and customers.” Erika joined the New York City Teaching Fellows program and completed her Master’s degree in Education while teaching high school physics, math, and engineering in Harlem. “One of the proudest moments of my career has been watching several of my low-income, female, Black and Latina students, many of whom were the first in their family to go to college, go on to receive full scholarships and pursue engineering degrees.” She left the classroom to lead a small nonprofit that was working to increase engineering education in underserved communities across New York City. “We opened a hands-on science studio and makers space in the South Bronx, and we ran family science programs and coding programs. We learned quickly that it was easy to excite a kid about STEM, but if their family was intimidated by STEM, it would be very challenging for the child to persist. So we started working with families and youth together to break down barriers.”
Erika’s move to Maine was prompted by a desire to scale this mission even further. “I ultimately realized that the key to scale was teachers because they reach every single student, not just those whose situation allows them to opt-in to a special program. My own experience as a teacher told me I could personally make an impact on student aspirations and access. I wanted to work with teachers to make every classroom an amazing and engaging experience and to increase access to STEM for all students.” The National Science Foundation had just given Maine over $12 million to create a partnership and infrastructure to strengthen science education and workforce development across the state. Erika became operations director of this partnership of school districts, higher education, government, nonprofits, and industry. “I learned that facing big complex challenges in a rural environment requires everyone to work together. Operating in isolation just doesn’t work. My job became as much about community-building, facilitating cross-sector conversations and advocacy as it was about professional development with educators and leadership development.”
Since arriving in Berkshires, Erika has been on the lookout for her next career move: one that would allow her to continue her focus on solutions to complex challenges through collective impact. “This is the first time I’ve moved to a place without a job lined up,” says Erika. “It’s been fascinating to observe the whole ecosystem before deciding where best to plug me in.”
Through working part-time with the STEM Starter Academy at Berkshire Community College, Erika discovered a challenge. “I would hear people say, ‘there are no jobs in the Berkshires,’ but then I would go interview a company and learn that they couldn’t find workers to fill their positions. It seemed like a big communication gap.” She created two YouTube series, STEM Works in the Berks and STEM Hires in the ‘Shires, that highlighted local companies and allowed them to communicate directly to students about needs, opportunities and skill sets. But she knew more work needed to be done in this area.
When a leadership spot opened at 1Berkshire, Erika was eager to join the regional conversation. “I love the role 1Berkshire is playing in the region. I love that we are involved in economic development, marketing, business support, education, advocacy, leadership development and entrepreneurship across the Berkshires. We are strategically addressing the key issues, and we are doing this by bringing groups together to collaborate on solutions.”
“The Berkshires are a wonderful place to visit, live and work. I’m excited to be part of the effort to share this message, support our local businesses, improve our infrastructure and help our economy grow and thrive into the future.”
Erika lives in Great Barrington with her partner, a restaurant owner and Kripalu teacher, and their two teenage boys. She loves being active in the Berkshire outdoors: running, cycling, swimming, camping and hiking. She also loves finding stillness and meditates with the Berkshire Mountain Laurel Sangha. Erika serves on the Berkshire STEM Pipeline Network Steering Committee and the Superintendents’ Roundtable Professional Development Subcommittee.