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Regional Chamber
Graduates Leadership Class
Twenty-five area residents received certificates of merit March 19 as the first graduates of the Mahoning Valley Local Government Leadership Academy.
The academy's nine-week course was established this year by the Regional Chamber to improve class members' leadership and decision-making skills as they relate to the public sector. The classes, sponsored by EMBARQ, continue the Regional Chamber's commitment to promote government reform in the Mahoning Valley.
A special guest at the graduation dinner was former Boardman resident Joseph Lucente, an extension agent in Community and Economic Development with The Ohio State University Extension/Ohio Sea Grant College Program. Lucente helped to create the leadership academy concept in Ohio and assisted the Regional Chamber in starting classes locally.
Chamber President Tom Humphries discussed initiatives to change the way local government and the schools do business in the Valley, including regional collaboration in the areas of economic development and providing services, and having one school administrative center in each county, resulting in available money for free tuition to all area high school graduates. Humphries said that those types of changes are needed to help stem the out-migration of our population that has taken place for years. He asked graduates to make the case for change in the community that will spur a new economic vitality for the region.
Tony Paglia, the Chamber's vice president for Government Affairs, said that it was his hope that in 20 years, "We will look back and say that the 2008 class started a meaningful movement for improved local government and school leadership in the Mahoning Valley."
The first graduates of the Mahoning Valley Local Government Leadership Academy are: Carolyn Angelotti, Embarq; Randy Brashen, Canfield Township trustee; Bert Cene, Mahoning-Columbiana Training Assoc.; Ernest Cook, Trumbull County Sheriff's Department; Annette Divito, Poland Township trustee; Heather George, Niles Expanded Metals; Matthew Gurbach, Harrington Hoppe & Mitchell; Rebecca Harris, Mahoning County Career & Technical Center; Sandy Homrighouse, Regional Chamber; Harry Kale, New Middletown mayor; Robert Lidle Jr., Poland Township trustee; Jeffery Magada, Flying High Inc.; Roger Parsons, Culinary Management; Phil Pegg, Vienna Township trustee; Deidre Petrosky, Cortland City Council; Doris Primm, Mahoning County Alcohol & Drug Addiction Board; Kevin Salata, Pricecutworld.com; Paula Moss-Sander, C&V Wholesalers; Tim Sicafuse, Poland mayor; Gail Stark, Warren City Schools; Roland "Butch" Taylor, Local Union 396 U.A., Pipetrades Mahoning Valley; Eric Thompson, Satolli Carpet; Matthew Vansuch, Harrington Hoppe and Mitchell; Kathleen Vrable-Bryan, Mahoning Soil and Water Conservation District; and Mary Williams, Lakeview Board of Education.
Plans are being made for the class of 2009. Call Gwen Lewinsky at 330-744-2131, ext. 32, for more information.
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