Philadelphia Federal Reserve President and CEO Anna Paulson met with members of the Lebanon County business and workforce community Oct. 7, to learn about the county’s collaborative efforts to expand job training and upskilling opportunities for in-demand careers.
Paulson’s visits Tuesday included a roundtable discussion with community leaders and local employers at the Lebanon Valley Chamber of Commerce, followed by a visit to WEPA Empowerment Center to see some of Tec Centro Lebanon’s workforce development programs. Her arrival was part of an ongoing tour in communities throughout the Federal Reserve’s Third District, which includes Central and Eastern Pennsylvania, Southern New Jersey and Delaware.
The Lebanon County visit highlighted the role cross-sector workforce development initiatives play in providing job training opportunities, according to Paulson. She became president of the Philadelphia Fed on July 1, 2025.
“One of the things that I’ve heard over a number of different conversations around where people are trying to solve challenges that are related to opportunity, education (and) workforce development are collaborating and not competing,” she said. “That’s a theme in conversations I’ve heard in here today, and I think is a theme in Philadelphia as well. Learning what is the secret sauce so that community groups, nonprofits can work together but not take over and compete for space.”
Members of the business community have had a multi-year relationship with the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, according to Lebanon Valley Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Karen Groh. Officials said that Lebanon organizations, like Tec Centro Lebanon, participated in the Philadelphia Fed’s Reinventing Our Communities, or ROC, Cohort Program in 2024.
“Because we’ve had this ongoing relationship, addressing workforce issues and providing information back to them, they asked if we would be interested in having this visit with the president,” Groh said.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia is one of the 12 regional Reserve Banks that, together with the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., make up the Federal Reserve System. Its role includes helping formulate and implement monetary policy and providing financial services to depository institutions and the federal government.
The goal of having conversations like those at the Lebanon Valley Chamber of Commerce or the visit to the WEPA Empowerment Center is to connect them to conversations that are occurring at a federal level, according to Paulson.
“I want to have in my head who are we setting policy for,” she said. “We’re doing things at this very macro level, but they have impacts to those around the kitchen table, in the lives of people who are trying to find a job, finance a home, buy a car. So it’s really important for me to have that picture and that image.”
Economic discussion
The Lebanon Valley Chamber of Commerce hosted a roundtable Tuesday morning, which included representatives from Tec Centro Lebanon, Fulton Mortgage Company, the Lebanon Career and Technology Center, VF Corporation, BQC Foundry and SCPa Works. Paulson said discussions ranged from finding opportunities for disabled residents, preparing a generation of workers to use AI technology and how manufacturing will create higher level jobs.
“When you got more technology in place, there’s opportunities for people to have more of a portfolio of activities that they are doing,” she said. “So people think that’s going to help retain workers and give them more investment in the job.”
Kay Litman, executive director of Tec Centro Lebanon, said the discussions were to help Paulson understand the pulse of what is happening in Lebanon County.
“It’s not unemployment, but it’s under employment,” she said. “People in low-wage jobs. We have a large manufacturing distribution in terms of employment, but those don’t have a lot of career pathing. A lot of those are located outside of the center of the city, so transportation is a huge issue.”
Litman added there were discussions of credentialing issues within the commonwealth. Tec Centro staff has seen a lot of residents who are already credentialed from other areas having issues with the Pennsylvania credentialing process.
“For example, we talked about nurses who are coming from Puerto Rico who, through the credentialing process, aren’t able to get into those high-end jobs like nursing because they can’t maneuver the state credentialing process,” she said.
The roundtable was a micro version of more broad conversations the Lebanon community has about workforce development, according to Groh. While the county will always have issues that need to be addressed, organizations are making efforts not to overlap initiatives and fill the gaps in workforce development.
“The issues that we have with workforce barriers, transportation, child care, affordable housing … none of those are unique just to Lebanon County, but they are in varying degrees in other regional areas,” she said. “It’s how communities address those barriers and provide additional upscaling opportunities.”
Across Lebanon County, 27% of households have at least one person employed, yet struggle to afford basic necessities, including housing, utilities, food, child care and health care, according to the Asset Limited Income Constrained, Employed, or ALICE, report. ALICE records household incomes that exceed the federal poverty level but are not high enough to pay for basic needs.
The City of Lebanon, Annville Township, Swatara Township, Union Township, East Hanover Township, West Lebanon Township, Myerstown and Palmyra were identified by the ALICE report as having more than 38% of households not having incomes to pay for basic needs.
“If the living wage in Lebanon County is approximately $21.50 an hour, and we have an awful lot of jobs that are far below that, how are we providing enough income to our individuals to live here without requiring additional community support?” Groh said. “In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need all of these nonprofits providing gap services.”
The role of the Philadelphia Fed in local economic conversations is in two parts, according to Paulson. The first is providing information and data in communities and helping to “catalyze conversations like the ones building community.” The second is the work that is done on the federal level, like with the Federal Open Market Committee.
“Our goal is stable prices, maximum employment,” She said. “We’re not the only players in town by any stretch of the imagination. But the extent that we have monetary policy that delivers stability, that let’s people make investments and choices that are going to pay off in the long run, it lets organizations like (WEPA) have stable funding to plan and to create programs that will impact the community.”
WEPA visit
Part of the Philadelphia Fed President’s travels in the county Oct. 7 took her to the WEPA Empowerment Center to meet with Tec Centro organizers, staff and students about workforce development. Organizers opened the doors of Tec Centro Lebanon building to the public in August 2023.
WEPA Co-founder Maribel Torres said it was exciting to have Paulson visit the organization’s programs and was “in-tune” with the issues facing the Lebanon community.
“We spoke about how we already have talent here in Lebanon,” she said. “We have people that come with credentials. They’re engineers, medical doctors, nurses, teachers … it’s just they can’t get employed right away for different reasons, different barriers.”
Tec Centro Lebanon has graduated 113 students in certification programs that include forklift drivers, medical technicians, phlebotomists and certified nursing aides since it started workforce training. Organizers are already adding CDL driver and medical records/billing specialist programs to add to the organization’s growing list of workforce development training courses.
Organizers are investing $1.4 million into finishing renovations to the former Elks building, which will include ADA access ability to all three floors and renovate the basement level. WEPA Co-founder Rafael Torres said that once renovations are completed, trade programs like basic carpentry and plumbing would be taught in those new sections.
“(Paulson) definitely understands that it is grassroots efforts that we need to build the community from the ground level in order for our cities, our communities, to thrive,” he said about the visit. “It’s through people, and connecting with people.”
Residents looking for more information about WEPA and Tec Centro Lebanon’s services can contact organizers at 717-708-3030 or visit the website at wepaempowercenter.org.
Matthew Toth is a reporter for the Lebanon Daily News. Reach him at mtoth@ldnews.com or on X at @DAMattToth.
