Luz Elena Henao is the Environmental Career Worker Training (ECWT) Program Coordinator at LOSH. She manages Environmental Career Worker Training Program (ECWTP) partnerships and program activities in Los Angeles and ECWT goals and initiatives for the Western Region Universities Consortium. Luz Elena holds a Bachelor’s degree in Latin American Studies from Smith College. Before LOSH, she worked as a wastewater operator for the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts for over seven years. She holds three active California State Water Resources Control Board certifications for Distribution, Treatment, and Wastewater Operations. 

 

In addition to her experience as a trade worker, Luz Elena has over twenty years of work and volunteer experience in the non-profit, private, and public sectors with workforce development initiatives, administration and coordination, bilingual worker and community-based training facilitation, and on-the-job workforce training. She believes the collective experience and organizing of workers and communities impacted by workplace and environmental injustices play a critical role in building a more just society and sees her capacity-building role at LOSH as a valuable contribution to advancing the health and safety of workers on the job. 

 

Outside of work, she enjoys reading about water politics and infrastructure, organizing spaces for cultural work and healing justice, and loves to drum, sing, and dance in the community.