The SkillsUSA Board of Directors and the Youth Development Foundation Committee met March 17 and 18 at the National Leadership Center. During my flight to Wyoming after the meeting, I sat back for a few minutes to reflect on how much the Board of Directors and the YDF Committee mean to this organization. That particularly hit home as the 24 members of the Board and YDF introduced themselves during our joint meeting on March 18. I just thought to myself: “Wow. Look at the breadth and depth of experience we have here in this room. We are extremely fortunate to have such an engaged, committed and high-powered group of individuals governing and guiding our work.” Here is a brief report on the highlights of the meetings.
The board approved the FY11 strategic plan and budget. This is the first strategic plan to be directed by the new Vision 2020 goal statements. The joint meeting of the YDF and board expressed a consensus to move forward with the WorldTeam for London in 2011, support for the Alumni & Friends Association initiative and for SkillsUSA’s Vision 2020.
In addition, the board revised the SkillsUSA mission statement. It now reads: “SkillsUSA empowers its members to become world-class workers, leaders and responsible American citizens.” The revision is the addition of the word “leaders.” Board members believed that SkillsUSA’s focus on teaching leadership should be manifest in the mission statement. And, the board revised the core statement to read: “SkillsUSA is a partnership of students, teachers and industry working together to ensure America has a skilled work force. SkillsUSA helps each student excel.” The sole change was the substitution of “SkillsUSA” for “It” at the beginning of the second sentence. These changes will be made to the SkillsUSA publications and online.
The board also established an ad hoc subcommittee to work on state association governance and financial standards. The board wants to be sure our state associations are and continue to be healthy. That includes having features such as industry support. The subcommittee will be looking for gaps where states need assistance and crafting recommendations on how the national organization might help. The state association directors currently serving on the board – Curtis Barnett and Larry Rabalais – are members of the subcommittee.
The board meeting highlighted something else: Four of the five regional representatives will be leaving the board of directors in June. We will have vacancies in Regions I, II, III and V. We’re asking the board and state association directors to nominate corporate members from their regions soon so we’re ready for elections come June.
