Passion for Public Service: A Spotlight on Our Portland District Office

With oversight for millions of businesses and roughly 148 million workers, ensuring compliance and protecting workers across the country can be a challenge. So how does the Wage and Hour Division achieve its mission? With dedicated professionals who are passionate about public service.

We recently caught up with a few members of our team in Portland, Oregon, to ask what inspires them to protect America’s workforce.

(Top row L to R: Keysha Echevarria, Joshua O’Malley, Caitlin Hegg, and Stephanie Garicia. Bottom row L to R: Carrie Aguilar, Nico Moore, and Katherine Walum.)

Q: What has your experience been with the Wage and Hour Division’s culture?

Keysha Echevarria, Wage and Hour Investigator: The culture here is one of resilience where we can practice our independent endeavors while working together to help the American workforce. Every day is a unique day in the Wage and Hour Division. The investigator position is a dynamic one – I meet so many different people and hear a lot of different perspectives.

Q: Which parts of the Wage and Hour Division’s mission do you connect with most?

Joshua O’Malley, Wage and Hour Investigator: I really connect with the idea of supporting the welfare of America's workforce. I get a lot of satisfaction from making sure that people are paid a fair wage for the work they do.

Q: How have you grown professionally while at the Wage and Hour Division?

Caitlin Hegg, Wage and Hour Investigator: I think I’ve definitely grown professionally. I've been able to develop good interpersonal skills by speaking to so many workers and employers and I’ve also gained a much broader understanding of labor laws in general. And I always enjoy the opportunities to learn about different occupations and industries.

Q: What inspires you to do your work as an investigator?

Stephanie Garicia, Wage and Hour Investigator: I get to change people’s lives. Investigators enforce workplace protections that can result in workers receiving a paycheck or overtime wages that had been withheld. We also educate employers so that they can fix any pay policies that don’t comply with the law.

I grew up in the garment district of Los Angeles…that's where my parents met. I use my childhood experience to push myself through my job every day. Whenever I think about underprivileged and low-income workers, I think about my parents, and I make sure to continue doing my part to help workers like them.

Q: What motivates you to work for the Wage and Hour Division?

Carrie Aguilar, District Director: I think back to my time as an investigator working on an agriculture case. One day, my team and I were doing a housing inspection as the workers came in from their day. We were trying to interview them. They were getting food and doing things that anyone would do when they got home from a long workday. And I noticed hanging on the clothesline outside was a baby’s onesie.

My daughter had just turned two at the time. And so that was really close to my heart because I would often get home from work and do laundry with a basket full of onesies and little socks. I thought to myself, what if I had to do that in a labor camp away from home while I wasn’t being paid properly?

The woman was working on the farm from 6:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., then coming back and doing her baby’s laundry in the labor camp, and she wasn’t even being paid all of the wages that she’d earned. I was so glad that I had the privilege to be there and enforce wage protections for her.

Q: How does your personal background shape your commitment to public service at the Wage and Hour Division?

Nico Moore, Wage and Hour Investigator: I come from a big family – I have six siblings. So, I understand that when working parents have a missed paycheck or they’re not being paid what they’re entitled to under the law, that can mean not having enough money for food or their kid’s college tuition. It's very personal for me…I’m committed to serving the public and helping vulnerable workers secure their paychecks so that they can provide for their families, send their kids to college, or just spend a little money to have fun.

Q: What’s your team like in the Portland District Office?

Katherine Walum, Assistant District Director: Our team is excellent. It's very diverse and we have a number of relatively new employees who were formerly with the Peace Corps . So, it's great to have people on the team who are committed to serving the public and disadvantaged populations. They're up for different experiences and they're very open-minded about everything, which works well during their training. And we have senior investigators on our team who are very knowledgeable about the laws we enforce – they’re great mentors.