It has been a sincere pleasure and honor to be completing my first year as the chair of the Board of Leadership Howard County. I want to thank the staff, my fellow board members, sponsors, countless volunteers, dedicated alumni, and program participants for their tireless efforts to make this year special. I am always humbled to think about the endeavors of this group to work within the community to ensure Howard County always remains a great place to live and work.
An additional thank you to the many community partners and friends of LHC who may not have participated in programs yet…. ☺, but have still been huge supporters of our organization, programs, and participants through the years. They, along with all of you, have donated their time, talent, and treasure and, we as a board, are very grateful.
2022-2023 has been an exciting year. In 2022, we celebrated our long time CEO, Stacie Hunt with a wonderful, first annual “Illuminating Leadership” event. I want to personally thank her on behalf of so many of us, again, for her twenty years of diligent and dedicated service.
At the same time, our organization is fortunate to have welcomed new President & CEO, Tim Payne, in July of 2022. His energy, enthusiasm, and hard work has been contagious as he charters the organization towards the direction of additional initiatives, programming, and events.
It has been exciting to be in our second year back to a full program schedule and in person events post-COVID. In the fall, I spent an exciting Sunday with our wonderful high school juniors who participated in LHC’s Leadership U 2022 program. I was inspired by their level of professionalism and dedication as they planned, discussed, and gained final approval of their worthwhile community projects. This day was near and dear to my heart, as both my daughters are past graduates of Leadership U, which is the marquee leadership program for students within the state.
I’ve also enjoyed the time spent with class members participating in the 2023 Leadership Premier program, LHC’s signature program. I fondly think back to my program experience with my fellow classmates in 2015, many of whom I consider dear friends to this day. My wish and challenge to the class of 2023 is to unseat the our 4-time winner of the “Best Class Ever”, the Leadership Premier Class of 2018 – certainly a tall task, but feeling confident that you are up to the task. Plus, there is nothing wrong with a little friendly competition around enhancing our community.
I’m looking forward to our next year fiscal year that begins July 1, and the continued evolution of our organization. On behalf of the board of directors, thank you for your participation, your generosity and engagement over this past year and welcome any and all to join us in keeping Howard County a wonderful place to live, work and play.
MOre items from Celebrate Leadership Howard County
