Business leadership and management skills will be the focus of several workshops this spring at the University of Washington Tacoma’s Professional Development Center.

Leadership certification
The university’s popular leadership skills workshop series will be repeated this spring. Patricia Fandt, director of the Milgard School of Business, and faculty member G. Kent Nelson will teach six classes emphasizing the skills managers need to be more effective.

The Leadership in a Changing World series begins April 13 and will emphasize dealing with conflict, creating powerful teams and developing effective communication skills. Participants who attend all workshops will receive the Certificate in Leadership Skills.

Fandt, a professor of management, was the founding director of the Business Administration program at UW Tacoma. She holds a Ph.D. in management and organizational behavior from Texas A & M. Her industry experience includes marketing for Procter & Gamble, Kendall Surgical Corporation and the 3M Corporation. She has also worked with a broad range of companies in the health care, service and technology industries. Fandt is retiring from UWT in June.

Nelson, who holds a Ph.D. in speech communication from the UW, is a well-known local public speaker, facilitator and trainer. He has been a management and communication consultant for several prominent South Puget Sound service organizations and private companies.

The Leadership in a Changing World series features the following sessions:
– “Challenge of Leadership,” April 13. Explore the power and adventure of learning self-leadership and assess your own leadership practices. Shape and control your behavior for success.

– “Enabling Others to Act,” April 20. Learn to deal with conflicts proactively by fostering collaboration and strengthening others through negotiation and mediation.

– “Challenging the Process,” April 27. Search out challenging opportunities to change, innovate and improve. Discover ways to be more effective in working with peers, supervisors and clients.

– “Inspiring a Shared Vision,” May 4. Examine your values, attitudes and behaviors and create a vision statement for personal and organizational application. Learn to lead with a shared vision.

– “Modeling the Way,” May 11. Seek out ways to create and maintain effective teams that contribute to the success of an organization.

– “Reality of Leadership Challenges,” May 18. Take a realistic look at managers’ daily lives and the challenges they face. Create a leadership plan based on the issues presented in this series and identify strategies for success.

All classes meet from 4:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Tuition is $147 per workshop or $832 for all six classes. Advance registration is required. To register or request a course schedule, contact the Professional Development Center at 253/ 692-4618 or visit www.tacoma.washington.edu/pdc.

Business management
Local business leaders Larry S. Kopp, Herb Simon and Gary Milgard are the featured speakers in a series of business management workshops presented by the KeyBank Professional Development Center at UW Tacoma this spring.
Kopp, managing member of the business advisory firm Globe Capital, and Simon, member of real estate investment and venture capital company Simon Johnson, LLC, are the latest additions to the popular Community Leaders Forum series. Last fall, Milgard, co-founder of Milgard Manufacturing, kicked off the first quarter of the series with four workshops.

“We had a lot of success last quarter with Gary Milgard’s series of workshops on business leadership,” said Alice Dionne, director of the Professional Development Center. “We’re continuing the series this quarter with more valuable topics for business professionals.”

The series begins April 20 with Kopp’s workshop on the stock market and continues April 27 with Simon’s workshop on business and civic responsibility. In May and June, Milgard will repeat his four popular sessions on business success.

The workshops offered this quarter are:
– Larry S. Kopp: “The Stock Market: Methods to Apply,” April 20. Learn what your future financial needs will really be and discover three ways to manage your investments better.

– Herb Simon: “Business and Civic Responsibility: The Impact of Growing Your Business and its Potential Influence on the Community,” April 27. Learn from a successful Tacoma entrepreneur how to focus on the importance you and your business play in growing the community. Learn about your civic and social responsibilities and discover the tools to become more involved.

– Gary Milgard: “The Milgard Philosophy,” May 11. Learn how to respect individuals, give customers the best possible service and pursue superior performance.

– Gary Milgard: “Perspectives on Leadership: What Makes your Business a Success?” May 18. Explore business philosophy and vision, management systems, human resources’ role in success, communication, leading by example and social responsibility.

– Gary Milgard: “Customer Service the Milgard Way,” May 25. Discover how to instill an attitude of service commitment throughout the company. Good service is the best marketing tool.

– Gary Milgard: “Management Performance System,” June 8 and 15. In this two-part workshop, learn how to make the human resources performance evaluation process work for your company by using MPS, a structured management system designed to inspire employees to work at their highest levels.

Each workshop will be held on campus, at South 19th and Pacific Avenue, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Kopp’s workshop will be in Cherry Parkes 206C; the rest will be held in the Tacoma Room, Garretson Woodruff Pratt room 320, above University Bookstore. Enrollment is limited. Tuition is $55 each for the first five workshops and $85 for the two-part “Management Performance System” workshop. Participants can enroll in the entire series for $315 or the four Milgard workshops for $225.

To register or request a course schedule, contact the Center at 253/ 692-4618 or visit www.tacoma.washington.edu/pdc.