Welcoming SLOCEA’s New President
SLOCEA would like to reintroduce you to Emily Landis, the newly appointed President of the Association. We have no doubt that Emily will do a remarkable job in filling this position. We have already seen her outgoing, upbeat, and can-do attitude since she assumed the Presidency in March.
Emily has lived here on the Central Coast all her life; she was born in Templeton and graduated from Atascadero High in 2007. Emily continued her education at Cuesta College after high school. When Emily was 23 years old, she decided to study abroad in Germany with her then 4-year-old daughter, attending a 6-month training program with an inter-denominational mission’s organization, Youth With A Mission. During this time, she joined a band with two other young women and spent her free time playing music in art galleries, bars and on the streets of Berlin, Nuremberg and Hong Kong. This experience gave her a broader understanding of herself as a parent, as a leader and as an artist.
In 2014, Emily was hired by SLO County as an Employment Resource Specialist (ERS). Her first job placement after training was at the Paso Robles office, where she worked for three years before transferring to the Foster Care unit in San Luis Obispo. In 2019, she was promoted to her current position, Social Services Program Review Specialist with DSS. While her current position has a broad spectrum of daily tasks, Emily’s favorite part of her job is creating tools and improving processes that provide a benefit to the staff in her department. She enjoys combining her creativity with her love of problem solving to provide tools that are valuable to her coworkers.
SLOCEA has been fortunate to have Emily serve as a Steward since 2015, and as a Director on the Board since 2016. She took on the role of Vice President of the association in October of 2019, and now, the President as of mid-March of this year.
Emily identifies her most significant moment during her leadership with SLOCEA as her experience serving on the Negotiating Team in 2022. This gave her the opportunity to learn the inner workings of negotiations, and she gained a greater appreciation for the energy and number of hours that go into the process. Emily believes that the current Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was a meaningful economic package for the membership. She feels lucky to have been involved in all stages of negotiations. This experience also gave her more insight into other positions within the County, other departments, and specifically the Trades Unit. Getting to know employees from other departments helped to build a stronger team at the table, and ultimately built a stronger MOU.
Looking to the future of SLOCEA, Emily has great ideas, and we believe with her dedication and strong will, we will achieve them. These goals include continuing to get more members engaged and filling the current empty seats on the Board. She hopes to encourage an even stronger membership that will build the next generation of Union supporters, continue the hard work of those predecessors, and help fellow members of SLOCEA truly understand their rights as employees of the County.
