Send future leaders to the Carlson Leadership Academy

The Nevada Alpha Chapter regularly sends a large delegation to their area Carlson Leadership Academy. The chapter is committed to making the most of CLA by using it to cultivate young members into future leaders. We had the chance to talk to Chapter President, Topher Cuellar, Nevada-Reno ’13, about their experience at CLA. Registration for CLA is now online.

Josh Hodnichak: How has attendance at CLA impacted your chapter leadership?

Topher Cuellar: Nevada Alpha values the experience CLA provides to our membership. It is now in our chapter culture that a brother must attend if he wants to serve in an executive position. We continually see that the members who attend CLA are the ones who come back and lead our chapter.

JH: What does your chapter do to get non-officers to attend?

TC: We always send all nine of our executive officers. Then to get interest up among the chapter, the chapter president sends out an email letting anyone interested reply stating why they would like to attend CLA. It has been the goal of our chapter to send at least one additional member per executive officer. Last year, our chapter sent 22 members - 13 of them were not executive officers.

JH: Cost is often a hindrance to non-executive members attending CLA. How do you make sure that money doesn't dissuade someone from attending?

TC: In our chapter budget, we have a section labeled “Leadership Continuum,” where funds are set aside so that more members can attend CLA. Our chapter provides these funds so individual members don't have to pay to attend. By doing this, we believe we are investing in our leadership.

JH: Do you receive any additional help in sending members to CLA?

TC: Our AVC supports our chapter by paying for more members to go. Last year, our AVC gave the chapter enough money to send 10 extra members to CLA. The number of rising leaders in our chapter proves that this is a worthy investment.

When asked about the alumni's investment to send additional chapter leaders to CLA, Chapter Counselor, Mike McDowell, Nevada-Reno '03, stated:

We made a decision about 12 years ago to pay for additional attendees and have seen a tremendous return on investment ever since. The result has been better prepared executive officers, and a set of young leaders that assist all year long and are able to step up and take on leadership positions more naturally. It also gets more of the chapter involved in the goal setting and planning process so they're more bought in and engaged.

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