In the annual ATD-Orange County Holiday Celebration and Volunteer Recognition Event, Chapter President Jeffrey Hansler look a moment to share his vision for our Chapter's future.

And he asked a question:

What is the greatest value ATD-Orange County can provide to talent development professionals and their organizations?

Jeffrey didn't give the answer outright, more's the pity. He did share his strategy for the coming year: to provide our members with multiple opportunities for outrageous value, and suggested that the majority of those opportunities will not reside in our programs, but in the roles within our Chapter.

Let's take a look at what he's getting at by exploring our Mission and Vision.

Mission:  
Empower local professionals to effectively develop talent in the workplace.

We're a community of talent development professionals passionate about what we do.  We want to enter the workplace and ... develop the talent of the people we work with.  YET: not all of us are empowered to do this, not unless we've been in the industry for years, and have built up credibility borne of research and experiences.  How do we get that empowerment?

Let's look to our Chapter Vision for that answer.

Vision: 
Be the space in which to practice and perfect your talent development skills and build your professional network in Orange County.

One of the things each of us works to provide in our training environments is a safe space for people to learn and share their thoughts.  This safe space is crucial for our participants to try new things without the risk inherent in failure.

ATD-Orange County is that safe space for the talent developer. 

Think of it.  This community is a microcosm of a training department.  From program coordination to marketing and communication, from lesson planning to leadership, if it's done in your training organization, it's done here.  ATD-OC is the source for your development plan in whatever talent development skill you need to work on.  Need a mentor?  Look to our Chapter Leadership.  Need to develop your mentoring skills?  Join the Chapter Leadership.

Over the course of the next few days, we're going to publish our Volunteer Special Recognition Awards.  These are folks who have come to ATD-OC with a passion to help and a passion to practice.  Listen to Past President Kathleen Dvorak-Ashelford praise their work, and you'll hear her mention time and again how someone tried something new, experimented with an idea they were working on, and impacted not only the Chapter but their own ability to credibly say: "I've tried this, here's how it worked, and here's how I'll apply this technique in your organization."

If you're looking for a safe space to grow your skills as a talent developer, we invite you to look to the heart of our community.  We're busy, but were empowered to both serve and develop a training organization 200 members strong.

(In the picture, we're meant to be the fellow holding the ladder.  The one with the telescope? That's you, planning out your future.)

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