By Kate Jonuska
Career dissatisfaction often stems from a feeling that something is missing, whether that’s time, self expression, financial reward or personal fulfillment. The beauty of pursuing a continuing education in a helping field such as counseling is that you might not only find and fix the source of your own unhappiness, you’re also equipped to try to improve the lives of others, which might ultimately be the larger reward.
“I’ve never done anything as fulfilling as counseling in my life,” says JoLynne Reynolds, assistant dean of the School of Education and Counseling, a division of Regis University’s School of Professional Studies. “There’s a sense that you’re honoring the humaness in all of us, meeting people where they are and not judging them, but helping them examine their lives and find ways to be more happy and fulfilled.”
Offering masters of arts degrees in counseling (which leads to becoming a Licensed Professional Counselor) as well as marriage and family therapy (designed for aspiring Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists), Regis finds that many students are drawn toward counseling’s physical benefits. The median salary is $45,000 to $50,000, for instance, and the Occupational Outlook Handbook predicts employment of mental health counselors will grow by 30 percent through 2016.
CLICK HERE to read the full text of this article, which published in the Feb. 21, 2010 Springs Jobs.
By Kate Jonuska
Reorganizing your resume, practicing your interview skills and polishing your professional appearance are all vital ways of marketing yourself for a new position or new promotion, but those with true ambition and drive realize that often education and only education can get your foot in the door of your dream office.
“In an intellectual society like ours and a service economy like ours, education becomes a huge benefit to those that have it and a detriment to those that don’t,” says Dr. Ernest Price, provost of the University of the Rockies, a psychology-focused graduate school based in Colorado Springs. “Less than 30 percent of Americans have any degree at all – and that’s a big number – but that means 70 percent don’t. Once you get down to masters and doctoral numbers, which are the programs we offer, it becomes less than 2 percent.”
Among that 2 percent of graduate degrees, Price believes one of the most valuable across many fields is the study of organizational leadership, which is a great extension of the university’s specialization in psychology.
“It’s a great adjunct to the clinical (psychology) program, which is concerned with the ways individuals act and think,” he explains. “But organizational leadership lends itself to those that want to focus within organizations, looking into the minds and behavior of people as a group. It’s analyzes why people and therefore why organizations behave as they do, and then gives you the ability to guide that organization toward its goals.”
CLICK HERE to read the full text of this article, which published in the Feb. 14, 2010 Springs Jobs.
By Kate Jonuska
Every career requires you to become an expert in something, whether that specialty is working with people, sales, research, design or predicting the stock market. But the trained and talented professionals at career-management firm GCM Lincolnshire Arbora specialize in careers themselves, other peoples’ careers and how to improve them.
“Most people have never been taught what to do to maximize their careers to where they want to be. They basically let the company take care of it or let chance take care of it,” says GCM CEO Mark Renn. “What we do is empower people to move in the direction they want. That can mean getting a certain position, but it can also mean getting to another level or moving laterally. We do everything from career transitioning to maximizing their position in the industry they’re already in.”
GCM’s certified career counselors are more than head hunters, more than human resource professionals. Instead, much like actors and athletes have agents, a career manager is the person in your corner, representing your best interests. By charting your career path, they’re able to pin down your passions and talents, maximize your marketability, find the best opportunities and even negotiate terms to your best advantage.
“In today’s world, we find everyone is doing a job search incorrectly in different ways, in some way. We have a very strong, quality process that makes things happen for our clients,” explains Renn, who says GCM’s clients are getting jobs very quickly despite a slower job market. “People should really check into our services to see if it’s right fit for them, because frankly, if we can shorten that job search even one month or two – and they will with us – that’s a tremendous amount of money to recoup.”
CLICK HERE to read the full text of this article, which published in the Jan. 24, 2010 Springs Jobs.
By Kate Jonuska
It’s not enough to be a good employer, according to PRC: Global Contact Management Solutions, though they certainly have proven themselves to be that over the course of the Colorado Springs strategic outlet’s three-year existence. In honor of that important anniversary, therefore, the location has taken on new site leadership and unveiled an ambitious new plan of community outreach, both in an effort to continue their success and improve the community that allows that success.
“It’s good business sense to be a good community citizen,” says PRC general manager Paul deBerjeois, part of PRC’s fresh new leadership team. “The stronger Colorado Springs and El Paso County are, it comes back to help all of us, and a stronger community means that we’re in a better position to serve our customers.”
PRC is one of the largest outsourcers of customer service and sales in the U.S. and boasts several Fortune 500 clients, explains Michael Replogle, vice president of operations, who joined the PRC team because of that diverse client base and the 25-year-plus history of the national company. But his driving goal – one of his specialties – is corporate and employee volunteerism.
“We want to show in 2010 that we’re not just committed to the community in terms of providing jobs, but also want to be involved with community outreach, involved with red-flag causes like at-risk youth, homelessness, supporting the military and their concerns,” he says. To meet that goal, PRC is dedicating each month of the next year to a different cause or organization.
CLICK HERE to read the full text of this article, which published in the Dec. 27, 2009 Springs Jobs.
By Kate Jonuska
‘Tis the season for peace on earth and goodwill toward men, but that attitude isn’t seasonal at Goodwill Staffing, a division of Goodwill Industries that provides professional staffing services to local businesses, furthering Goodwill’s mission of spreading self-sufficiency.
“We can say that nobody is in the staffing industry for the same reasons we are. We’re the only non-profit in the area,” says Steve Tooke, assistant director of Goodwill staffing. Tooke has been with Goodwill Industries for 20 years and with Goodwill Staffing since its inception 11 years ago. “That’s not to say that we provide services for free – our fees are competitive – but that’s not the reason we’re in business, to make money.”
Certainly, Goodwill Staffing provides all the quality services of any for-profit staffing agency, including recruitment of employees, background checks, drug screening, skill testing and more. But the heart of the business is to help the economically disadvantaged become self-sufficient by connecting them with work, the surest way to improve their quality of life. Once employees and overhead are paid, all profits funnel back into other Goodwill programs right here in the Pikes Peak region.
“We really run this as a business. It’s not a program that’s just the right thing to do. It’s the smart thing to do,” says Tooke, explaining that many clients are surprised that the agency works with able-bodied job candidates with a wide range of backgrounds, education and experience. “Once they realize the professionalism of the office is comparable to the best out there, it’s an added value that we’re also benefiting the community with what we’re doing.”
CLICK HERE to read the full text of this article, which published in the Dec. 20, 2009 Springs Jobs.
By Kate Jonuska
Kia fans who were keeping an eye out for the 2010 Sorento SUV might have been disappointed when a version of the popular five-passenger SUV failed to appear. But when the new 2011 models roll out in January, the extra time and attention Kia took when they skipped a Sorento model year are sure to impress and excite.
“We skipped the 2010 model completely, so it’s been completely redesigned,” says Greg Horton, sales manager at Dave Solon Kia of Chapel Hills, 1560 Auto Mall Loop. “It’s completely different. It’s more of a sleek design, more aerodynamic and really clean good look.”
Certainly, the exterior with its striking front fascia and bold lines will turn heads, but the real change is a rather a shift in concept: from same-ole five-passenger SUV into five- to seven-passenger SUV/crossover. Kia increased the interior volume of the Sorento by about 15 percent, allowing for a third row of passenger seats to seat seven and also a massive 72.5 feet of cargo space with both passenger rows folded flat.
“The third row is good room for kids or even a full size adult, or with the last seats down, there’s such great storage,” says Horton. “It competes really well with the Honda Veracruz. We still have the Borrego, which is a seven-passenger (that’s) larger than this, but you’re looking at a price jump there. Now we can target that customer that doesn’t want to spend Borrego money but wants Borrego luxury.”
CLICK HERE to read the full text of this article, which published in the Dec. 19, 2009 Springs Wheels.
By Kate Jonuska
Earlier this week, the 2009 Homeland Defense, Homeland Security Symposium met at the Broadmoor, where more than 600 security experts communicated about the safety of our country. According to a survey of almost 200 professionals in the industry released at the event, they’re truly concerned about what the future may hold.
“Seventy five percent think it’s likely the US will face a terrorist attack of 9/11’s magnitude in the next five years,” says Dr. Luis Velez, vice president of education at Colorado Technical University, the symposium’s gold sponsor. “One of the biggest points was that 72 percent of people surveyed felt that more education in the topic would be beneficial, straight across the board. The more we’re educated about homeland security, the better off we’ll all be.”
Looking into what lies ahead for our country, Colorado Technical University agrees that the path to safety for everyone lies in training qualified professionals to fill positions in the new and expanding realm of homeland security. To that end, they introduced both masters and graduate degrees in the field in July and currently have students enrolled in classes such as Dynamics of Terrorism, Vulnerability Analysis and Protection and Psychology of Fear Management.
“There is a sense of uneasiness, a sense of wanting to be prepared. Homeland security really means protection of ourselves, our children, our way of life,” says Velez, who notes how much the world has changed since September 11. “It’s a field that you feel you’re accomplishing something, something for the benefit of your fellow neighbors, your family, your community.”
CLICK HERE to read the full text of this article, which published in the Nov. 15, 2009 Springs Jobs.
By Kate Jonuska
Throw out the script and forget what you’ve been told about call centers, says Joy Zuckerman, Freedom Communications call center manager. Often called the “special forces” department of Freedom advertising, this vibrant call center headquartered in Colorado Springs handles the special advertising needs of seven Freedom Communications properties including operations in Colorado, California, Florida, North Carolina, Arizona and the Rio Grande Valley.
“It’s never boring. We move where the money moves, and the newspaper business is always exciting. There is always something new on the table,” says Zuckerman. The call center was created in November of 2008 to handle the ever-changing and miscellaneous needs of its newspapers. Now celebrating its first anniversary, the call center’s success has created a need for talented new agents.
“We’re in a state of constant, consistent and immediate growth,” Zuckerman explains. “We started with 11 call center agents and myself. Now we’re hiring up to 44 call center agents and we have team leads and managers, and we’ll have more management positions opening next year.”
CLICK HERE to read the full text of this article, which published in the Nov. 8, 2009 Springs Jobs.
By Kate Jonuska
“Great leaders are born, not made,” goes the oft-heard idiom, but J. Stephen Kirkpatrick begs to disagree. As the dean of the School of Organizational Leadership at the University of the Rockies, it’s his job to sculpt students into successful leaders every day.
“The idea that leaders are born? No. Leadership behavior is something you can observe, get feedback on and learn to do better,” Kirkpatrick says, explaining that the University of the Rockies ― a graduate-level institution specializing in the various fields of psychology ― founded the School of Organizational Leadership in 2007 in order to train professionals in the psychology of groups and how to make those groups successful.
“When we say organizational leadership, we’re talking about leading any type of organization, whether that’s in the military, in the private sector in a corporation, or in a non profit or a religious group,” he explains. “We distinguish leadership from management because we believe management is about scheduling, budgets, resources. Leadership is about influencing other people to help you accomplish the organization’s goal, objectives and strategies.”
Using psychology and social science, organizational leadership graduates learn to understand others, find what motivates them, bond teams and develop strategies for success in any industry, because every industry involves people. And with 11 specializations within the School of Organizational Leadership ― including executive coaching, mediation and conflict resolution, business psychology, non-profit management and more ― the University of the Rockies can prepare students to take any career to the next level.
CLICK HERE to read the full text of this article, which published on Oct. 25, 2009 in Springs Jobs.
By Kate Jonuska
Stocks may rise and stocks may fall, but there are certain careers that are guaranteed to always be in demand, according to IntelliTec Medical Institute, a fully accredited healthcare training facility since 1966. After all, the human body will always need care and trained professionals to provide it, and one field that’s especially promising in healthcare is dental assisting.
“Everyone has to go to the dentist,” says Alexxia Wood, dental assistant program supervisor at IntelliTec. “Dental assistants, believe it or not, are very highly paid and are ranked as one of Top 10 professions via the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And the real beauty is that if you graduate from an ADA (American Dental Association) program, you’re eligible to go to any of the 50 states and get a job and be very marketable immediately.”
The ADA has accredited 232 institutions in the United States and only four in Colorado, of which IntelliTec is one. Their 11-month, 19-day certificate program in dental assisting offers a 12- to 15-to-1 teacher-to-student ratio and a heavy emphasis on clinics as well as courses covering professionalism, communication and even psychology. It’s a curriculum sculpted by IntelliTec’s advisory board of industry professionals, who make sure graduates become assistants they want to hire.
“Dental assisting today is not just about the glorified spit sucker. We’re actually the right arm of the dentist and a vital part of the office team,” says Wood, who explains that assistants are not only technically trained to care for their patients’ mouths. They also work in financing and billing, compose treatment plans, juggle scheduling and more.
CLICK HERE to read the full text of this article, which published in Springs Jobs on Oct. 18, 2009.
