Vice Chancellor of the Workforce and Economic Development Program
Van Ton-Quinlivan is the Vice Chancellor of the Workforce and Economic Development Program, California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. She has spent more than 15 years in a variety of corporate leadership roles, most recently as director of workforce development at Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E). While at PG&E, Ton-Quinlivan created PowerPathway, a nationally recognized best practice model program in workforce development. Launched in 2008, the PowerPathway program linked industry, the public workforce development system, the California Community Colleges and organized labor to help military veterans and underserved populations transition into energy-sector jobs.
Ton-Quinlivan was appointed in July 2012 to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Advisory Committee on Apprenticeship by Secretary Hilda Solis. In 2010, Ton-Quinlivan was selected as one of 10 industry leaders to inform the Education and Training Subcommittee of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board on the workforce needs of industry. She was one of five corporate leaders invited to attend the first-ever White House Community College Summit. Earlier this year, Ton-Quinlivan spoke at the inaugural US-Canada-European Commission Trilateral Roundtable on the topic of the Employment Dimension of the Transition to a Green Economy and participated in the inaugural Clinton Global Initiative-America meeting in June.
Ton-Quinlivan has served on the Task Force on Future Energy Jobs for the National Commission on Energy Policy and co-chairs the California Energy & Utility Workforce Consortium, which she founded. She served on the executive committee of the Center for Energy Workforce Development, a national organization formed by the trade associations of the nation’s electric, gas, and nuclear sectors, to jointly address workforce trends. Ton-Quinlivan has presented on numerous state and national conference panels and has testified in front of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee and the California Assembly Committee on Higher Education.
She served on the CCST Board of Directors until 2019.