Leadership Award an Honor and Challenge

I had a wonderful honor last week to accept the Leader of the Year Award from Leadership Clark County. It was wonderful and humbling, especially with Jimmy Sheehan also honored as the Distinguished Community Leader and Mark Stephenson as Alumnus of the Year. I look at the award not as having achieved a pinnacle in leadership but as a challenge to continue to develop leadership skills that can benefit Greater Springfield. The award as I see it isn’t that Mike McDorman is a leader worthy of any honor, but that the Chamber has a critical leadership role in this community and that’s what is being recognized. I see my role and the Chamber’s role as being stewards of this time in the community’s history. Our challenge is to make things better for those who come after us. Isn’t that what leadership is all about? I was fortunate to be in the Leadership Clark County Class of 2001. Leadership Clark County opened my eyes to a community that I had lived in my whole life, but had never seen before. It was the key to uncovering many of the opportunities that would build in me the tools for success in what I do today. I got to see firsthand how the strengths of different people coming together around a common cause can help move an organization forward in extraordinary ways. I liked the experience so much, in fact, that I decided to leave Ohio Edison in 2006 to become a part of the Chamber of Commerce. I hope and pray we at the Chamber can use our leadership position to move this community forward. Have a great Chamber day! (Don’t forget to vote for refurbishing the Lagonda Club building at www.refresheverything.com/lagondachallenge.)