(WASHINGTON, DC) — In his continuing efforts to ensure that District of Columbia residents are equipped with the skills and resources they need to compete in the city’s growing job market, Mayor Vincent C. Gray today announced his first appointments to a reinvigorated Workforce Investment Council.

Mayor Gray appointed Michael N. Harreld to serve as chair of the council, and Joslyn Williams to serve as vice chair.

“The Workforce Investment Council has a vital role to play in providing robust and stringent oversight of local job-training programs -- but that mandate has not been met,” said Mayor Gray. “It must be reinvigorated to provide improved oversight and better outcomes for programs that invest in our workforce. I am reconstituting this body with industry-specific business members, community members and government leaders focused on developing the city’s workforce– and Mike Harreld and Joslyn Williams are exceedingly well-qualified to lead this effort.”

Mike Harreld is Regional President for PNC Bank. He has held executive responsibilities in retail banking, corporate banking and wealth management for PNC and Citizens Fidelity (a PNC predecessor) since joining the company in 1969, and came to head PNC’s Washington region operations when the company bought the former Riggs Bank in 2005.

Joslyn Williams became the first African-American president of the AFL-CIO Metropolitan Washington Council in 1982. The council, chartered in 1896, comprises 175 local unions representing 150,000 members in the District and suburban Maryland. Williams came to the United States from Jamaica when he was 16 and earned a bachelor’s degree from Howard University. He began his career at the Library of Congress, where he first became a labor activist.