Before I was a workforce strategist.
Before I was a commissioner.
Before I was Dr. Erby.

​

I was a little Black girl growing up in East Phoenix, rooted in legacy and covered by grace I did not yet understand.

I am a second generation Phoenician. My maternal grandparents, Dave and Amanda Gray, built their home by hand in 1920 at 1415 E. Jefferson, just a block from historic Eastlake Park and diagonal from the residence of the legendary Councilman Calvin C. Goode. That home was more than lumber and nails. It was ownership. It was dignity. It was permanence in a city still becoming itself.

​

After my grandparents passed, my family occupied that same home. It became my forever home. I grew up surrounded by history, by resilience, and by the quiet evidence that when faith meets discipline, something lasting can be built.

​

On one side of my family was my grandmother Eva Tolliver, who lived by the railroad tracks. On the other was my grandfather Easton Tolliver, a master builder and car lot owner. I often say I did not grow up in the projects, but I grew up just down the street. I learned early that proximity to struggle does not determine destiny.

​

My father, Lee K. Erby, was known across Phoenix for his culinary brilliance as the head cook at Brookshires Family Dining. He was a country man from Blackwell, Arkansas, where my ancestors founded the town and built everything from the schoolhouses to the postal service, hospitals, stores, and churches. That town holds our family cemetery, where my father rests today.

 

Building something from nothing runs in my blood. So does endurance.

​

My mother worked third shift as a supervisor at American Express. She was a teen mom who dropped out of high school, only to later return and earn her GED, her associate degree, and her bachelor’s degree. She became the first Black woman to own and operate a fleet of yellow cabs in Phoenix and later excelled as a City of Phoenix Section 8 housing supervisor.

​

I watched her lead the Debonairs Charity and Arts Club. At the time, I did not know it was a nonprofit. I just knew I was her little helper. We made care bags for the homeless. We cleaned streets. We fed neighbors who did not have food. We visited elderly residents in the hospital who had no family. She dragged me all over the city, and what she was really doing was teaching me that service is worship in motion.

​

Church was not optional. I often say I feel like my mother gave birth to me on the pews of Phillips Memorial C.M.E. Church on East Adams. Faith was not decoration in our house. It was structure. It was correction. It was covering.

​

I was not self made. I was legacy built.

But legacy does not eliminate hardship.

 

At five years old, I was hit by a drunk driver and propelled into the air and over phone lines. I spent months in a body cast and had to learn to walk again. Even then, I believe grace carried me when my body could not carry itself.

At six years old, I was molested. My father, brilliant and charismatic, also battled alcoholism and violence. When my parents divorced when I was twelve, my world fractured. I wrestled with confusion, fear, and instability.

​

I became a teenager making immature decisions while trying to find footing.

​

At seventeen, I became a teen mother. At eighteen, I was living in Section 8 housing and using food stamps to survive. Minimum wage was $3.55 an hour. I remember landing a job making $10.75 an hour and thinking I had hit the lottery.

I was on track to be a statistic. A young single Black mother living under the poverty guidelines.

 

But I also carried something deeper than circumstance. I carried calling, even when I did not have language for it.

My mother made sure I graduated high school. She refused to let me repeat her path. I had my second son at twenty one. I deferred my dreams to raise two boys without their father in the household, determined to produce grounded men who would someday be husbands and fathers.

 

And they did.

 

I defied the odds. I raised two healthy, prosperous sons who are now exceptional Black fathers and husbands. What could have been generational decline became generational strength.

 

As a middle aged woman, I returned to college and earned my bachelor’s degree in Human Services Management and my master’s degree in Health Administration. I did not return for applause. I returned because I knew my experience had to be stewarded well.

 

I had lived under the poverty line. I had navigated public assistance. I had worked minimum wage jobs. I had experienced trauma. I had questioned myself and wrestled with my faith.

 

But I also knew this:

 

I did not escape the system. I studied it, survived it, and now I help redesign it.

 

What once limited me now informs me.

 

Years later, the journey that began in Section 8 housing and on the pews of Phillips Memorial came full circle when I was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy in Humane Letters. That recognition was not about title. It was about testimony. It affirmed that the same young woman who once worried about how to pay rent had become a leader shaping workforce systems, influencing civic policy, and advancing economic mobility at scale.

​

That doctorate represents generational redemption. It represents what happens when obedience, discipline, and perseverance meet opportunity. It stands as living evidence to my sons, to my community, and to every underestimated child that purpose does not expire because of hardship.

 

Today, as a nationally recognized workforce leader, Certified Fund Raising Executive, Certified Workforce Development Professional, commissioner, and equity advocate, I lead with one conviction:

 

Empowerment is not charity. It is access, ownership, and economic mobility by design.

 

My work in workforce innovation, pay equity, and economic advancement is not abstract. It is personal. I know what it feels like to pray for opportunity. I know what it takes to build stability. I know what systems can either unlock potential or suffocate it.

​

Throughout my life, mature women sowed wisdom into my spirit. Black civic leaders modeled intentionality and tireless service. I watched people build Phoenix with vision and prayerful persistence so that my children and grandchildren could inherit something stronger.

​

Community and civic service, combined with faith, runs in my DNA.

 

My story is not shared for applause. It is shared as evidence. Evidence that systems can be navigated and rebuilt. Evidence that legacy and leadership can coexist. Evidence that faith and strategy are not opposites, but partners.

 

Today, I do not simply tell stories of resilience. I build frameworks that create it.

 

If you are ready to strengthen your organization, empower your people, and advance economic mobility with intention and integrity, let’s build what’s next together.