Walter Simmons

Walter Simmons is the founding President & CEO of Employ Prince George’s Incorporated and the Executive Director of the Prince George’s County Workforce Development Board. Over the past 10 years Walter has held various workforce development positions within local government, state government, the private sector, and nonprofit industries. Geographically, Walter’s career has spanned the east coast, including stops in South Carolina and the District of Columbia. In 2016 Walter began his career in Prince George’s County and later that year, at the age of 28, he became Maryland’s youngest Local Workforce Development Board Director, and one of the youngest in the United States.

In July of 2018, Walter helped found Employ Prince George’s, Inc., becoming the nonprofit’s first President & CEO. In his current roles, Walter leads the Prince George’s County Public Workforce System, staff’s the Prince George’s County Workforce Board, and manages a staff of over 75 talented and dedicated professionals at Employ Prince George’s. The Prince George’s County Public Workforce System is one of the largest workforce systems in the State of Maryland, serving over 30,000 job seekers and businesses annually.

Walter was a 2014 invitee for the White House Summit for Working Families due to his work in Financial Stability. In 2018 he was recognized as one of Maryland’s Very Important Professionals under 40 by the Maryland Daily Record. In 2020 Walter was recognized as an Influential Marylander by the Maryland Daily Record, and later that year he was recognized by the Washington Business Journal as a 40 under 40 awardee. The Maryland Daily Record recognized Walter as one of Maryland’s Most Admired CEOs for 2021.

Since 2016, Walter has helped Prince George’s County secure over $13 million in workforce funding to create innovative workforce development programming that has helped thousands gain employment. Walter believes that successful workforce systems are driven by innovation, the leveraging of resources through community partnerships, and ensuring that the business community is the driver of a workforce system. In the spirit of innovation and partnership, Prince George’s County is home to the only Public Workforce System operating as a Membership Network, the Prince George’s County American Job Center Community Network, in the United States. Walter is actively involved in his community as a board member and chair of multiple national, statewide, and local nonprofit organizations.

Outside of helping his community as a workforce development professional and nonprofit leader, Walter’s secondary passion is serving as the host of the award-winning workforce development podcast, The Workforce Wire.