This past Monday night the Chamber held the Adult Leadership Graduation for the 15th graduating class of the program.

In 2001 when the Chamber’s Board of Directors first began researching how to structure the Leadership program and received some good advice from other programs around the state. All of those programs emphasized that we must begin with a strong steering committee, with the task of designing the initial structure of the program and dedicated to implementing it and seeing that the program is successfully completed.

Our initial committee and subsequent committees embraced this task and set out to insure that our program, from the beginning, would be of the highest quality and would provide for its participants, an opportunity to learn as much as possible about Sampson County and its specific challenges, opportunities and services.

This committee not only plans activities for the program, but as you now know, actively participates in those planned sessions. Furthermore, committee members stepped up, and doubled their participation by planning, implementing and leading the Junior Program composed of 22 high school students throughout the county. The Junior Program is now in its 13th year.

The adult leadership graduating class this year is:

Kaitlin Adkins — Clinton-Sampson Chamber of Commerce

Sheila Barefoot — Sampson County Convention and Visitors Bureau

Donna Bullard — Star Communications

Russell Byrd — City of Clinton

Bob Carr — Advanced Fire Protection, LLC

Eileen Coite — Sampson County Cooperative Extension

Jill Faircloth — Black, Chestnutt, and Johnson, CPA’s

Scott McLeod — Deacon Jones of Clinton

Elizabeth Merrill — Sampson County 4-H

Bart Rice — Sampson County Small Business Center

Kristin Stafford — City of Clinton

Andy Wells — Harrells Christian Academy

Graduates, we are proud of you and celebrate your successful completion of the program. We appreciate your enthusiasm as you participated in each segment of the program, and we appreciate your comments and feedback.

The Chamber Board of Directors, executive director and the Leadership Steering Committee are grateful for the support of the participant’s employers who understand the importance of a leadership program to their organizations and this community.

We are grateful to business, industry, government personnel and public servants who gave of their time, knowledge and provided tours for our program participants. We are confident that these graduates are now better able to serve you and the community in which they live.

Our next Adult Leadership Class will pick back up in the Fall of 2019. Interested in getting on the list for our next class? Email us at [email protected] or give us a call at 910-592-6177. We would love to have you apart of the amazing experience!

The 15th graduating class of the Adult Leadership Program through the Clinton-Sampson Chamber of Commerce.
https://www.clintonnc.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/web1_Leadership.jpgThe 15th graduating class of the Adult Leadership Program through the Clinton-Sampson Chamber of Commerce.

https://www.clintonnc.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/web1_Kaitlin-Norris-1.jpg

By Kaitlin Adkins

Contributing columnist