Happy Summer!It’s hard to believe we are already half way through 2015, which means we are half way through the 2015 Challenge. Session II in Kansas City at the beginning of June was another great experience for our Challengers.Even as we enjoy this year’s Challenge, it’s never too early to think about 2016. We are currently accepting nominations for next year’s class. Remember that nominating your colleagues to share the Greater Missouri Challenge experience is as easy as filling out this form. We will take it from there to have the nominee apply.As we look to future classes, it’s important to note that the future of Greater Missouri Leadership Foundation is only as strong as our Alumnae support. You should have received your dues notice by email. For only $50 per year, you keep your Greater Missouri Leadership Foundation membership active and guarantee the organization’s future. Membership dues can be paid easily online.While you are taking care of dues, we hope you’ll also consider a donation to our scholarship fund initiated by our2008 Class. Scholarship donations can also be made online for your convenience.I hope this summer finds you well. Thank you for your ongoing support and involvement with YOUR Greater Missouri.
Dues Renewals Are Out
Annual dues notices were sent out last week. Please check your email (and your email spam folders) to be sure you receive your invoice.Your ongoing membership membership is a vote for the value of your Greater Missouri Leadership Challenge experience and enables the Foundation to do great things for our Alumnae and Challengers.And membership offers many great benefits.Your dues of only $50 per year keeps you connected to all the events of Greater Missouri.
– Invitations to Alumnae events
– Participation in regional Alumnae and Challenge events
– Participation in GMLC sessionsYou may pay dues online. Click here to submit your dues payment.In addition to your membership, please also consider a donation to the scholarship fund to pass on the gift to future Challengers.To make a donation to the scholarship fund, fill out this form.
Nominations Open for 2016 Challengers
Do you know an exceptional leader who should become a Greater Missouri woman?Our amazing Challenge class each year only happens if we have excellent nominees from our alumnae. Please fill out the nomination form to offer the Challenge experience to a friend, colleague, peer or leader.Nominate a Greater Missouri Woman for the Class of 2016 Now!
Help Share the Greater Missouri Story
This video, debuted at the Woman of the Year luncheon, is a tool we’ve created to give potential Challengers and future sponsors a feel for who we are and what Greater Missouri offers women leaders around the state.The concept for the video is “I am a Greater Missouri Woman.” Using the definition of a Greater Missouri Woman the organization has created, we interviewed several Alumnae about how they were a Greater Missouri Woman before and, more importantly, after their Challenge experience.We focused on how the program impacted their career, their community and their perspective.Thanks to Katie Steele Danner (Alumna 1993), Valerie Nicholson Watson (Alumna 2004), Peggy Ladd (Alumna 2008), Marcelle Pires (Alumna 2010), Jan Grossman(Alumna 2008), Tina Workman (Alumna 2008), Tonya Noble (Alumna 2010), Kristy Chastain (Challenger 2015),Malvika Jhangiani (Challenger 2015), Lily Ren (Challenger 2015), Kat Cunningham (Alumna 1999), Suzanne Rothwell(Alumna 2004), Leigh Ann Taylor Knight (Alumna 2010) and the 2015 Challengers for participating in this project.Please take a minute to watch and then share the video with your contacts. Here’s how you can help share the Greater Missouri story:
– Share the video on your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn- Email the video to women in your network who you think would be good Challengers- Share the video with your organization’s leadership and explain to them what being in GMLC has meant to you.
– Encourage your organization’s leadership to sponsor a colleague to go through the Challenge.
– Encourage your organization’s leadership to sponsor Greater Missouri programming or scholarships.
The 2015 Challenge resumed in Kansas City on June 3-5.Here are some highlights of the session. To see all the photos, visit the Greater Missouri Facebook photo albums.
Session started at the offices of Lathrop & Gage with presentations on Connecting Women Leaders to KC Boards, The Kansas City Landscape: History and Overcoming Barriers.
We then moved to the Negro Baseball League & Jazz Museum for lunch, a quick tour by museum president Bob Kendrick, center.
The first day finished with a reception at Saint Luke’s Health System’s corporate headquarters with three CEOs – Dr . Melinda Estes of Saint Luke’s Health System, Cici Rojas of Central Exchange and Valerie Nicholson-Watson of Harvesters
On Friday, the Challengers competed in the lunch challenge at Harvesters using a food pantry grocery trip to make their own lunch.
Meet the Class of 2015
Each issue of the Greater Missouri Leadership Chat, we will introduce you to a few of this year’s challengers. We hope you’ll reach out and welcome them to the Greater Missouri family.
Tonia Compton Associate Professor of History
Columbia College
Columbia
Tonia teaches courses on women’s history, African American history, the American West and Latin America. She is the advisor for several student organizations, including the History & Political Science Club and the college’s top academic honor society, Alpha Chi. In addition to her teaching and advising, Compton chairs the Women’s History Month committee at the college. She is currently the chair of the Curriculum and Academic Proposals committee and certifies student athlete eligibility in her role as the Faculty Athletic Representative. In 2011 Compton was named Faculty Member of the Year by Columbia College Students and was recognized as Advisor of the Year in 2013. She is finishing a book manuscript on women’s property rights in the nineteenth-century American West and beginning a new project on suffrage and political activism in Missouri in the early twentieth century.
Shelly Doucet Director of Development
Starlight Theatre Kansas City
Shelly is most proud of raising $6.4 million to renovate a former hotel into a domestic violence shelter. She obtained her Juris Doctorate from Louisiana State University. In her four years of law practice, she was admitted to the Louisiana and Mississippi bars and worked in a variety of settings, from solo practitioner to medium-sized firm, to government lawyer. Her areas of practice included personal injury, workers compensation, insurance defense, mediation, and medical malpractice. After moving to the midwest in 1999, she obtained her MSW from KU with a focus on administration.
Carolynne Huether Senior Program Manager
Boeing
St. Louis Carolynne leads Advanced Learning within The Boeing Company’s Defense, Space & Security organization. She manages a 200+ person organization across 5 Boeing sites and multiple business units supplying computer based training, courseware, instructional design and instructor services. The team supports more than 25 platforms and customers both international and domestic representing Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine and Special Ops programs. Most recently, she led a team of 60 software and hardware engineers to deliver military simulator products.
Barbara Hodges Executive Director, True North Columbia
Barbara was with True North for four years in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, but left for seven years to do court advocacy in northern Missouri for counties that did not have advocacy resources. In 2009, Barbara returned to True North as the Executive Director. Barbara has a Master of Public Administration from the University of Missouri and a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia College. She has been active in the Columbia community for many years, including having been president of the Columbia Chamber of Commerce Ambassadors, Leadership Columbia, and Metro Rotary Club. In 2014, she was awarded the coveted Athena Award, presented by Women’s Network.
Happy Summer!
