Future Leader's Level I Session was held in Sacramento late 2007 and in San Diego early 2008.  For those who attended the Future Leader's Level I Session and is interested in Future Leaders Level II certification, ACEC California will begin to offer half day sessions that will count towards the certificate.  The Continuing Education Committee decided to break down the program to make it more efficient and affordable for the members. 

The first session will be Business Writing for Engineers.  The session will take place on June 17, 2009 at Nolte Engineering in Sacramento and on June 19, 2009 at RBF Consulting in Irvine. 

Please check back for a full Future Leaders Level II schedule.  The next session will be scheduled in the Fall of 2009.

For several years, ACEC California has endeavored to implement a Future Leaders program designed to help member firms like yours develop its promising managers into the future principals and, perhaps, future owners of your firm(s). The program has held successful seminars in conjunction with our annual conferences on several occasions since its inception. But each seminar concluded with one question from participants and the sponsors who sent them: when will you offer more? Indeed, in a recent research study conducted by ACEC, most firms who were asked indicated that they would be increasing their continuing education budgets - with many of those demonstrating a desire to allocate a portion of those funds on leadership development and ownership transition training.

To address the desires of the past program participants, and to service those members seeking leadership training programs for their aspiring employees, the ACEC California Future Leaders program has undergone a remarkable evolution over the last seven months. The Future Leaders committee decided (with the concurrence of the ACEC California Executive Committee and Board of Directors) to secure the services of a leadership training consulting firm to develop and implement a new phase of our program. After a thorough search, the committee secured Performance Resources Consulting (PRC) as the program provider. PRC has a proven track record of success in implementing programs like ours. Significantly, PRC has operated a leadership training program for ACEC Colorado for five years. That program has registered the maximum participants every year since its inception - a telling measure of the program’s success.

We have decided that we will implement nearly the same program here for members of ACEC California, utilizing PRC’s faculty and curriculum. The program will offer two different levels, each providing specific skills for design professionals transitioning from team member to team leader. Each level will encompass eight subjects, taught in four days in four consecutive months. These topics were selected after a review of potential subjects and comments received via surveys of the ACEC California membership. We feel these topics are among the most important skills your future leaders must grasp prior to effectively functioning as leaders within your firm.

Topics include:

Fundamentals of Management
Business Communication
Coaching for Results
Delegation Skills
Introduction to Business Development
Business Writing & Meeting Management
Training & Orientating Staff
Long-Term Client Relationships

The sessions will be taught in a professional, yet comfortable environment - allowing participants to learn, share and apply techniques that are the basis of good people management.