From left to right: Daniel Jasso, Jr., SkillsUSA Puerto Rico state director Pedro Rodriguez, Undersecretary of Vocational Education Helen Sosa-Staples, Region IV V.P. Eduardo Luna

• I announced the official record-setting membership in the last Executive Update. Since then. we’ve had an additional 1,000+ memberships come in, many of them from Puerto Rico where there’s been the difficulty of moving the education offices from one building to another. Staff attended the spring leadership conference in Puerto Rico, along with Region IV Vice President Eduardo Luna and his advisor Daniel Jasso. They also did several school visits from April 18-24 and met with the Undersecretary of Vocational Education, Dr. Helen Sosa Staples. There was also a meeting with officials to discuss creation of postsecondary membership in Puerto Rico, and that would be a fir
• Staff was in Chicago April 29-30 attending the PLTW Core Training Preparation, a train-the-trainer conference for PLTW (Project Lead the Way) instructors. Marsha presented the Engineering Alliance and, of course, met with the trainers. Approximately 450 educators attended and they, in turn, will be conducting 185 training sessions around the country this summer during five two-week sessions.
• We had a staff meeting on April 20 looking ahead to the National Leadership and Skills Conference, and it’s not far off. Georgia-Pacific and Robert Bosch Tool Corporation will co-sponsor the opening ceremony. There are already 75 SkillsUSA University sessions scheduled, and 13 new TECHSPO exhibitors are signed up. And, the National Robotics League will return again this year to hold its national competition at the Hyatt Convention Center from June 21-23 in conjunction with our conference.
• On April 22, half of the staff went through Red Cross CPR training. The other half will receive training in September. This is a move to reduce the cost of health insurance. And, on April 23, the national staff pitched in to clean up the National Leadership Center in preparation for the 45th Founders’ Day Celebration held on May 7 (more on that next time).
• On April 30, I attended the NCCER (National Center for Construction Education and Research) board of trustees meeting in Napa, Calif.

Tags: Engineering Alliance, NLSC, Staff News, State Conferences

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 15th, 2010 at 5:59 am and is filed under Executive Perspectives. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.