What’s Your Professional Development Plan for 2013?

This is the time of year that we all reflect on the year gone by and start planning for the year ahead. While this has been a year of many challenges for everyone in our country, I hope that for you it has also been a year of personal and professional growth. And as you think about the year to come, are you making a plan for your professional development and encouraging those who work with you to do the same?

Professional development is near and dear to my heart, as I have spent my entire professional life developing and delivering training and educational opportunities for working professionals. This is not a passive activity on the part of the learner or their employer. Time and money have to be budgeted for these activities or they won’t happen. But without a commitment to ongoing professional development the growth you hope to achieve in your business is not likely to happen. In our business, we differentiate ourselves with our knowledge and skills and those who stay ahead of the learning curve will always win.

NASBP has made a commitment to continue to develop educational opportunities for our membership that make a meaningful difference to both the student and their organization. With the growth of alternatively delivered content through our Virtual Seminars and our new online courses—Contract Surety Fundamentals and Commercial Surety Fundamentals—we have been able to bring our educational content to more surety professionals than ever before. In 2012 alone, we had over 4,000 individuals participate in a NASBP school, workshop, continuing education session, online course, or Virtual Seminar. Considering the size of our industry, that’s a very large number!

In 2013 we will have some exciting new additions to our educational lineup. A new advanced school curriculum is being developed that will become the Level III of the William J. Angell Surety School and will be offered for the first time in conjunction with the Summer School. Two new online courses are under development—one on Financial Guarantee Bonds and one on Construction Contract Risk.

My challenge to you is this—commit to investing in yourself and your people in 2013. We’ll commit to continuing to bring you the highest quality surety education.

The author of this article is Ann Latham, NASBP Managing Director of Professional Development & Education. She can be reached at alatham@nasbp.or