As featured in the Milton Standard-Journal
MILTON — Employees of the Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit (CSIU) gathered virtually on Aug. 2 for its annual Professional Leadership Day (PLD).
PLD brings more than 580 CSIU employees together to present an enriching educational experience that fosters a sense of community, invites and promotes learning and reflection, reiterates a commitment to CSIU values, and celebrates award winners and milestone accomplishments.
The theme of 2022 PLD was CSIU: Living Our Values. This theme echoes the CSIU’s commitment to the organization’s established core values of service to others, passion for excellence, equity in action, and innovation for growth.
From left, Professional Leadership Day award winners Karen Lehman, Paula Dickey and Parke Brown with CSIU Executive Director Dr. John Kurelja. Winner John Benchley is not pictured.
The Keynote Speaker is the entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and best-selling author of The Hero Effect, Kevin Brown.
Brown’s presentation about The HERO Effect encouraged staff to see the heroes around them and find the hero within them. It also invited staff to seek out the one thing one can do to make life better for the people we serve in our community and programs and the colleagues we serve with.
The annual event also featured the presentation of four staff awards.
Parke Brown, a youth development coordinator at the CSIU’s Center for Schools and Communities, received the Passion for Excellence Award for having the passion to make a positive difference and commitment to achieving excellence.
Paula Dickey, Yes to the Future program manager, was the recipient of the Patrick F. Toole Kudos Award for her achievement, dedication, and service to schools, children, and the community at large.
Karen Lehman, a youth development program manager at the CSIU’s Center for Schools and Communities, received the Ambassador of the Year Award for demonstrating the qualities of a CSIU Ambassador.
John Brenchley, CSIU’s Chief Innovation Officer, received the Kevin P. Singer Innovation Award. The award honors a staff member for demonstrating an innovative approach to his or her role at the CSIU. This award commemorates former CSIU Executive Director Dr. Kevin P. Singer’s visionary leadership with valued entrepreneurial thinking, creativity in the arts and in job performance, and ingenious problem-solving.
CSIU Executive Director Dr. John Kurelja addressed the organizational strategic plan and values, stating “Our values emerge from looking in the mirror at ourselves, individually and within our programs, to see what makes us tick; what makes us successful as an organization and what we want to focus on in the future. This is where our core values of service to others, passion for excellence, equity in action, and innovation for growth came from. Our purpose comes to life through living these values.”
The CSIU is a regional education service agency that serves 17 school districts, three career and technical centers, 69 nonpublic schools, and programs ranging from Pre-K classrooms to Adult Education and workforce development across central Pennsylvania.
The CSIU also includes the Central Susquehanna LPN Career Center in Montandon and the Center for Schools and Communities in Camp Hill.
