The Employment System Policy (ESP) Division is made up of the Employment System Administration and Policy (ESAP) unit, Legal Appeals unit, as well as the Performance Management unit which includes the Benefit Accuracy Measurement (BAM) Unit and the Tax Performance System.
Within the ESAP unit, there have recently been some retirements, so we’ve recently hired some new staff to help fill those vacancies.
- Jason Barrett - Jason is a relatively new addition to Washington state, having moved here in late 2016 from Los Angeles, where he worked on state economic development policy for the Milken Institute. He lives in Seattle with his wife, Laura. They can usually be found on the weekends hiking one of the many trails in the Puget Sound area with their miniature schnauzer, Molly.
- April Amundson – April started with Employment Security in 2008, working with special programs, such as Trade Readjustment Allowance, Shared Work and the Office of Support Enforcement. In 2009, during the Great Recession, she went to the claims center as an adjudicator. Then April worked on the Unemployment Tax & Benefits computer system (UTAB) from 2015 to the beginning of 2017, developing definitions for non-monetary decisions and training end-users on system navigation. Right before coming to ESAP, she was with Customer First, assisting with the transition from GUIDE to UTAB.
- Erin Blades – Erin has 20 years’ experience in workforce development, most recently spending eight years as a supervisor in Pierce County’s customer relations, re-employment services, business services, outreach and partner relations. Prior to working for Employment Security, she was a Workforce Investment Act (WIA) case manager/partner at WorkSource Auburn. Most recently, she has been a trainer on the ETO case-management software, is a certified Human Centered Design practitioner, and has participated on numerous statewide customer-improvement work teams.