Symone Gyles, an Animal Sciences student at Edison Academy and this year’s Virginia state president, put the work of our state association directors into perspective with her opening remarks during the dinner that began the State Director Association Annual Professional Development and Training Conference on August 11 in Herndon, Va. She spoke eloquently about the difference SkillsUSA has made in her life. Then her parents rose to say the same thing and Symone’s instructor was there too. SkillsUSA is known for changing lives. That’s made possible by many people, especially by our state association directors.

Also recognized during the dinner: Karen Ward, state association director for Massachusetts and Ann Wick, state association director for Kansas were both honored for their recertification as Certified State Directors. And, Best of Brand awards were presented to Massachusetts (who won two), Georgia, Ohio and Arizona.

Kim Green, executive director of the National Association of State Directors of Career and Technical Education consortium (NASDCTEc) was our keynote speaker during the dinner. Kim and NASDCTEc believe that several factors in the domestic and global economy – in addition to trends in education – will come to favor unprecedented growth and support of career and technical education. Making that case – and covered in an earlier Executive Update – NASDCTEc has released a document called “Reflect, Transform, Lead: A New Vision for Career Technical Education.” See the document at http://careertech.org/show/new_vision. Kim discussed the paper’s recommendations and ways in which SkillsUSA could use the vision in its own work. There are some elements that are somewhat controversial, but that’s often the case in any vision.

The conference was held from August 10-15. There were 36 state associations represented in all with 45 directors and assistant directors attending. Eight of the directors are new and attended the new director training sessions on August 10 and 11. The August 12 and 13 meetings featured 19 best practice sessions including conducting state legislative days, strategies to grow state conferences, and social media/online monitoring for non-profits taught by an outside expert from Vocus. The state directors’ business meeting and regional meetings took up most of Saturday, August 14.