Melanie Anderson, Executive Vice-President, NAWB, has 20 years of experience leading strategic initiatives to advance workforce and education policy and programming. As Executive Vice President for the National Association of Workforce Boards, Anderson is responsible for overseeing operations and maintaining and developing strategic relationships with nonprofit, government, education, and corporate partners. She has provided strategic and thought leadership on workforce development issues within public and private discourse and has led national and regional discussions on the advancing work-based learning with key partners in industry, workforce, and education.

Dr. Ayer is a clinical psychologist at the RAND Corporation and an advisor on suicide prevention at the National Institute of Mental Health. Her work is focused on exploring and testing new models of mental health service delivery, particularly in non-traditional settings, in order to improve access to evidence-based services for marginalized and underserved communities. She received her B.A. in psychology from Cornell University and her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Vermont. She completed her clinical internship at the Medical University of South Carolina/Department of Veterans Affairs Consortium.

Lakythia Ferby joined STRIVE as Vice President of Programs, bringing extensive experience in the workforce development field. She is the Executive Director of STRIVE New York, and she serves on the Board of Directors of the New York City Employment & Training Coalition. Prior to joining STRIVE, Lakythia served as Assistant Deputy Commissioner of Employer Partnerships at New York City’s Human Resources Administration (HRA), where she oversaw the establishment and growth of employer relationships throughout the city for HRA’s welfare-to-work programs. She has held a variety of leadership positions in New York City’s workforce development community, including Director of the Workforce1 Career Center in Brooklyn for Goodwill Industries of New York and Northern New Jersey and Director of Performance Management at Arbor Education & Training/New York Job Partners.

Lakythia holds a Masters in Public Health from the Boston University School of Public Health and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Virginia.

Tina Yerry joined STRIVE as the Wellness Program Coordinator in April of 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this role she transitioned mental health services to a virtual platform, and she continues to develop and implement individual and group supportive services, trauma-informed psycho-education workshops and an anger management courses for all STRIVE Participants/Alumni. Tina is an associate member of the NYS Psychological Association; a member of the National Anger Management Association; and recently served on an Advisory Committee for the New York State Police Reform and Reinvention Collaborative. She holds an MA and BA in Forensic Psychology from John Jay College of Criminal Justice and NYS Advanced Certificates in Victimology and Psychological Assessment. She is currently pursuing her CASAC-T.