Member Spotlight
Introducing Our New Prez—
Janet Cherry
Some of you may have had the pleasure of meeting or hearing our new APCC President, Janet Cherry, at an APCC workshop or at ABC or even ASTD. But many of you have not. So, we thought, as she leads us into the New Year, this would be a good time to acquaint you
all with her.
Our President is a woman of much experience and many talents. Her professional credentials are nothing short of amazing. Janet has been on both sides of the desk, as an external and as an internal consultant for training and development. She has worked in both corporate and education settings, 13 years as an internal consultant and ten as an independent. She decided to leave the work of independent consulting while she was working on her doctorate at Vanderbilt, when it “became too difficult to travel every weekend . . . and stay focused on marketing, meeting client needs, and staying sane.” At that time, Janet worked as manager of Staff Development for the University of Tennessee, Health Science Center, where she directed the education and development of all non-faculty staff. Later, she moved to the University of Tennessee in Memphis, where she was the Director of Executive Education. In both of these positions, Janet worked with consultants, contracting them, monitoring their performance, and measuring results. At present, Janet is Training Advisor for FedEx Express, out of their Memphis headquarters. Janet knows what those who buy our services are looking for and need, and her experience and perspective make her a valuable resource to all of us in APCC.
Janet is very active in ASTD, both locally and nationally since 1985. At present, she is National Chapter Advisor. She is also on the Board of the International Listening Association, which she served as President. She is, one might observe, a doer.
A Well-Published Author
Along the way, Janet has done some outstanding research on assessing the value of training and development, creating a sophisticated and useful model that can accurately calculate the value of training results. At present, she is completing her book based on this model and her research. This is not the first time Janet has published. In fact, Janet is well published. She has published a series of Self-Study Guides on topics such as
communication, accounting, economics, and administrative operations, by Simon and Schuster, now in its 4th edition. She has also published
Tools and Toys for Trainers, which she uses in workshops on creativity and instructional strategies.
Many Talents, Many Interests
If all of this doesn’t keep Janet busy enough, she is also actively involved in the design and launching of a restaurant along with her son and his family including two grandsons she adores and her husband. Janet also has done communication therapy through dance with abandoned children to help them connect to others once again, work she says she found “most rewarding.” And when you get a chance, ask her about the cloth doll (along with her four friends) she is creating to market, along with ten books that will help children develop their listening and memory skills.
Janet and APCC Meet
Janet first became interested in APCC about 10 years ago when she participated in an APCC roundtable at ABC in Los Angeles. During the workshop, she met many of the members and felt APCC was “ a ‘good fit’ for me.” Since that time, Janet has participated and presented at several APCC workshops, including an outstanding workshop on assessing the value of training presented as an APCC Professional Development Day in Nashville.
What Janet values about APCC is “the expertise that is at our fingertips through the listserv and through the associations you make with individuals.” The variety, she says, is “astounding.”
President Cherry’s Vision for APCC
When asked what she envisions for APCC during her leadership, Janet answers, “I see a shift in direction for APCC in the future—more visibility for the association—and with the unveiling of our new website—we will be in position to consider many new initiatives bringing additional services to our membership.”
It’s clear that APCC is in more than capable hands. APCC’s Presidential reins are in the hands of an expert, an author, a humanitarian, and a visionary, a woman with boundless enthusiasm and energy. She knows she has a big job ahead of her, but reassuringly she says, “I look forward to this challenge.” So do we, Janet, so do we.
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