This website is under development. We are continuing to recruit to complete our Board of Directors and Board of Advisors. Research is also continuing to complete the content of our Programs section. The purpose of this preliminary version of the website is simply to explain the concept of the site and the way it functions. Watch for the complete site soon.

Who we are

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Don Carlson

President and Founder

Don is a native Bostonian, son of immigrants, U.S. Army veteran, Northeastern graduate, who spent most of his working career as a consultant on workforce challenges, serving as a partner of an international management consulting firm. After many years working overseas in developing countries, he returned to Boston, and following his love of jazz, became a founding board member of JazzBoston and served as its Chief Operating Officer for many years. During this time, he joined the NAACP Boston branch, served on its Labor and Industry Committee, and, working with Michael Curry and Segun Idowu, authored the economic development section of the branch’s extensive assessment in 2017 of the efforts and results of the Boston city administration in dealing with issues of concern to people of color.

He went on to become the NAACP representative on the Boston Jobs Coalition, working directly with Chuck Turner, other community leaders, and city and union officials on a range of issues related to providing good jobs for people of color in Boston. During this time, he also served as an active member of the team that created and launched the Roxbury Cultural District.

With his base of experience, Don fully recognizes the unique value of good jobs, for individuals, their families, their communities, and for the City. Hence, his dedication to helping people qualify for and find good jobs.

Mike Szkolka

Research Director and Member, Board of Directors

Having worked in education for two decades in the Boston and New York City public schools, Mike has focused on improving the lives of thousands of teens, young adults, and their families. That is a multi faceted undertaking, and he has seen the immediate and long-term impacts of quality employment opportunities. Simply put, when people have real access to good jobs, those people thrive.

Mike grew up in Dorchester, went to the Boston Public Schools, and values working with the community above all else. As a member of the Boston NAACP's Labor and Industry Committee, he began researching and collecting employment opportunities, which drew him to this project. As an educator, he has worked in every role, from classroom lesson planning to administrative operations and determining school-wide policies. Mike has organized evening GED classes in Harlem, operated youth boxing programs in Southie, and is an integral member on the Dorchester Day Parade Committee, to name just a few pieces from his resume. The focus always remains the same though - whatever it takes for the community to succeed.

Pauline Bilsky

Communications Director and Member, Board of Directors

Pauline is a jazz activist, communications expert, lifetime member of the NAACP and member of its Boston branch. After many years of consulting to CEOs of multinational corporations on critical internal and external communications, she is now focused on using innovative approaches to engage jazz in the ongoing struggle against racism.

In 2005, Pauline co-founded JazzBoston, then led it to become the pre-eminent jazz advocacy organization in the region. Most recently she established Power of Jazz Inc., a tax exempt nonprofit whose directors include Elynor Walcott, matriarch of the Wally’s Jazz Café family, and Linda Jackson, wife of the late Eric Jackson, known as dean of Boston jazz radio.

Pauline counts among her “firsts” bringing live jazz into City Hall and into the City Council chamber itself in partnership with then Council President Michelle Wu.