The cohort received a lift courtesy of the county’s “official” transportation vehicle.

With more than 70 percent of former San Diego County inmates returning to the prison system and state regulations forcing budget cuts at correctional facilities, the old theory of “lock ‘em up and throw away the key” is no longer rooted in reality.

The LEAD San Diego IMPACT cohort heard from law enforcement officials from different agencies – including San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore and Joseph Jones from the U.S. Border Patrol and community partners, such as Second Chance, which provides work readiness training and other supportive services to former inmates –and collaboration was the resounding theme of the day.

San Diego faces some unique geographical challenges when it comes to law enforcement, and collaboration among different agencies – from federal to state to local – is key to maintaining San Diego’s safety record and weathering the funding challenges being felt throughout the state and nation. While jurisdictions are important, San Diego agencies understand that by working together and sharing information they can be more successful – a lesson to which most leaders will attest.

Collaboration with nonprofit community organizations is also essential to ensuring the safety and well-being of all San Diegans. As the county’s detention facilities face an influx of inmates from the state along with dwindling budget, it’s focusing on programs and partners that can help inmates successfully return to their communities and stay there. Whether it’s substance abuse cessation and work training programs during an inmate’s incarceration, or partnering with outside organizations like Second Chance, it takes collaboration from both public and private entities to ensure inmates can successfully transition the “outside” world.

The cohort had the opportunity to see life from an inmate’s perspective firsthand as we toured the George F. Bailey Detention Facility and the East Mesa Detention Facility. Needless to say, the experience was eye-opening – particularly as our role quickly turned from observer to the ones being observed – and one of my fellow participants said it best when she stated, “I’m so thankful that I don’t struggle to stay out of this place.”

Her assessment was spot on. What if I had the same circumstances these individuals grew up with? What if I was born into a drug-addicted home or grew up in a neighborhood where joining a street gang was an unavoidable option? What if that was the only life I knew?

It made me re-evaluate my own personal preconceptions about former inmates and helped me understand that while most of these individuals are there because of poor decisions, many have never known another option.

Hopefully, through continued collaboration among public, private and community leaders, we can raise awareness of these societal challenges that impact our growing inmate population and create programs that help these individuals transition back into society.

The arts have an incredible ability to connect us, enrich our lives, inspire us and entice emotion, but as LEAD San Diego’s IMPACT cohort recently discussed, arts and culture provide much more than simple enjoyment.

“It’s not just about entertainment and leisure,” said Dalouge Smith, President and CEO of the San Diego Youth Symphony and Conservatory.  He suggested San Diego’s arts and culture community is about much more – community identity, neighborhood cohesion, creativity, education, sustainability, redevelopment and economic activity.

Through the session’s presenters – which included representatives from San Diego Natural History Museum, San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego Museum of Man, Museum of Photographic Arts, Balboa Park Celebration EDGE 2015, the City of San Diego and the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership  – the cohort learned the true contribution arts and culture organizations provide to our community. The group heard about how local museums serve our community through environmental sustainability efforts; how artist districts can act as seeds for redeveloping communities; and how our vibrant arts and culture community stimulates more than $170 million in spending and supports a workforce of nearly 6,000 individuals.

Having relished the few art history classes my coursework would allow in college, this idea reminded me of the framework through which I had studied – what a culture’s artwork said about its values and way of life.

As we spoke about the 2015 Centennial Celebration of Balboa Park, the center of cultural life in our region, I began to wonder what San Diegans in 2115 would learn from the arts we create today. Would they see the revitalization in our communities, the diversity of our neighborhoods and the pride San Diegans have for their city?

Creating a lasting arts and culture legacy isn’t just the responsibility of art patrons, it’s up to all San Diegans to foster the opportunities this community brings to our region. With more than 1,120 volunteer board positions and 11,600 arts and culture volunteer opportunities in San Diego, there’s no shortage of ways to get involved. So find what moves you, get involved and help shape the impact of San Diego’s arts and culture for future generations.

Only 63 percent of San Diego County students are considered proficient in English Language Arts and only 53 percent are proficient in History-Social Science.

When Dr. Sally Bennett-Schmidt from the San Diego County Office of Education spoke to the LEAD San Diego IMPACT cohort to share these metrics, the nearly unanimous reaction was shock and disbelief.

While these numbers are increasing, the pressure to continue an upward trajectory, coupled with cuts in education funding, mean instructors focus heavily on language, science and math, but have little time to spend on other areas, such as visual and performing arts.

While some may think painting, woodworking, music or theatre are not as important when looking at these startling proficiency scores, the cohort learned it’s precisely this misconception that is hurting our educational system, our kids and our future workforce.

Dr. Ed Abeyta, director of K-16 education at UC San Diego Extension, suggested it’s a disservice to our students if we don’t give them the time and opportunity to experience what the arts can bring to a “left brain” mind.

In the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) disciplines, students are taught to memorize complex solutions often without real-world application. They’re taught that there’s one right way and one right answer. Whereas in the arts, students are rewarded for thinking outside the box, being creative and employing divergent thinking to come up with multiple solutions. Yet, when looking at our ideal future workforce, we need scientists, technicians, engineers and mathematicians to be innovative, think outside the box and develop new solutions to old problems, and we need artists who can help convey this technical data visually.

“We’re really good at killing creativity,” said Barbara Edwards with Math for America San Diego.

Instead, she suggested, we need to create curriculum and instruction that fosters creativity and invites students into a puzzle or problem.

Our esteemed speakers from UC San Diego’s CREATE, Math for America San Diego, San Diego Science Project, University of San Diego and UC San Diego Extension are all pushing to change this paradigm in education by looking at how incorporating the arts, while changing instructional approaches, can help create a future workforce proficient in the STEM disciplines but also well-versed in “right brain” activities and open to looking at things in a different way. They suggested we should no longer focus solely on the STEM principles, but incorporate the arts and divergent thinking into those areas, which is often referred to as the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) movement.

There’s clearly much work to be done to shift this effort for a movement into systematic change. So what can we do as business and community leaders to help change what we deem to be “critical” in educational instruction to ensure we have a workforce well-equipped to tackle the problems of tomorrow?

Whether it’s joining the PTA, tutoring, fundraising for arts programs in schools, letting your voice be heard at the school board level or hosting a teacher at your workplace to talk about skills the future workforce will need, there’s a number of ways we as a community can get involved in the education of our children.

By shifting our educational paradigms, empowering teachers with the tools to keep students engaged and stimulated, and encouraging community members to become active participants in education, we’ll not only see increased student success, but a better-equipped workforce and, ultimately, a better quality of life for our region.

“I live a charmed life … I try to honor it by reaching out to people who don’t live the life I live,” said Kim Bond, president of Mental Health Systems (MHS), at a recent LEAD San Diego IMPACT session dedicated to health and human services. I reflected back on the LEAD session recently when I received an email from a commercial tenant in my condo complex seeking solutions to the “homeless problems” in the building.

While reading the email – which noted the “problem” erodes our enjoyment of our properties and property value – I couldn’t help but feel compassion for those homeless individuals who end up sleeping in our building’s stairwells or commercial parking spaces. I took off my hat of condo owner and dutiful HOA-dues payer, and instead wore one of concerned community member, and thought back to the discussion recently facilitated through LEAD.

The LEAD session centered mainly around “behavioral health,” a term that, according to MHS, includes both mental illnesses and challenges, and substance abuse disorders – things that are common in our community. Some estimates say as many as one out of every four people suffer from some form of mental illness, which – like substance abuse – can happen on a continuum and includes everything from anxiety and post traumatic stress disorder to depression and schizophrenia.

“What does mental health issues look like?,” said James Lepanto, senor vice president, mental health division of MHS. “Hold up a mirror. That’s what it looks like. We often think of it as ‘other’ people, but it’s not. It’s us. It’s our community.”

The LEAD cohort discussed not only how behavioral health issues affect individuals and families, but also the impact to the workforce, economy and quality of life through problems such as homelessness and strains placed on our health care and incarceration systems.

So what do we do?  LEAD attendees were reminded of the words of Mahatma Gandhi: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Ways you can help include:

• Get educated. Aspects of behavioral health issues are preventable and treatable.
• Talk about behavioral health with friends, family, colleagues or others.
• Advocate on behalf of programs that provide solutions and address behavioral health issues head on.
• Be empathetic.
• Volunteer your time and talent.

By doing these things, we are playing a role in the solution, and removing the stigma around mental illness. According to MHS, every day in San Diego someone commits suicide. Others who suffer from behavioral health issues sleep in our public spaces and on our streets. We can’t – and shouldn’t – ignore the issue.

The NST team will be traveling “over the river and through the woods” to visit our family and friends for the Thanksgiving holiday. While we will be spending this time with each of our personal friends and family, we want to pause for a moment and give thanks to the friends and partners of NST.

We are lucky to work with so many wonderful and caring organizations on a daily basis, including our clients, community and industry partners, media partners, and people we simply call our friends. Collectively, these groups give each of us a reason to come to work every day with a smile on our face.

From our Thanksgiving table to yours, we wish you a Happy Thanksgiving!

LEAD President and CEO Vicky Carlson has called the IMPACT program an “MBA in San Diego,” – on Oct. 20 the cohort got its first official course and it was on the green economy.

While we didn’t become experts in one day, we certainly learned a lot about what the “green economy” really means and the role we play in the future of a green San Diego. While many people tie the green economy to global warning, Reo Carr, editor in chief at the San Diego Business Journal, who served as the day’s moderator, challenged this notion.

“Whether global warming exists is irrelevant to our considerations … to link the green economy to global warming is a huge mistake,” said Carr. He argued that being “green” is about much more than global warming. It’s about the impacts on our environment that we see every day. Carr said that people are moved by what they see on a local level.

Things like plastic bottles washed on the shores of our beaches and the San Diego riverbed fouled with pollution are examples of negative impacts on our environment that can’t be ignored. Unlike global warning, you can see these physical manifestations, and they impact what our future looks like.

“The green economy will become as fundamental as any industry we know today,” said Carr.

So what does that mean for me and my IMPACT cohorts? Does that mean we should abandon our fields and jump on the “green” bandwagon? Not so, but there are implications for all of us. In fact, Jim Waring, co-founder of CleanTECH San Diego says every business can be a “green” business.

“I don’t care what you do. It’s about being the best you can be with your resources,” said Waring. “It’s about doing more with less, and it’s in the best interest of the world.”

Some argue that at its most basic level, being “green” is about just that – doing more with less. But in San Diego, we are doing more than the status quo. We are putting our stake in the ground as being a recognized leader in green technology. But are we ready?

“We need to develop our competitiveness,” said Chuck Flack, research director for the San Diego Workforce Partnership. “There is excitement around ‘green,’ but do we have the workforce needed?” The answer isn’t simple. While there are certainly individuals, organizations, educational institutions and businesses dedicated to improving the green skill set of our workforce, there is still work to be done. It’s an evolving process that has no end.

The takeaway for leaders: we all play a role, not only in doing our respective parts to use resources more wisely as individuals and within our respective organizations, but also to ensure the workforce is equipped with the green skill set needed now and in the future.

Teresa Siles (@tsiles) is vice president and director of social media at Nuffer, Smith, Tucker, a full-service public relations firm in San Diego focused on creating conversations and building relationships to help clients succeed.

As any public relations practitioner will attest to, having a crisis plan in place is essential to any organization successfully landing on its feet after encountering unexpected hurdles. We at Nuffer, Smith, Tucker, take proactive crisis planning very seriously, as was displayed during our building’s recent fire drill.

Our office is perched at the top of a 18-story building in downtown San Diego. Because of our height, we are able to enjoy a view of San Diego Bay’s sparkling waters, the majestic Coronado Bridge and even Padres’ PETCO Park. Unfortunately, it also means we endure walking down 18 stories during the annual fire drill.

Price Adams and Michelle Livermore have been designated as the fire marshals of our floor and stay up to speed on safety protocol by attending regular training sessions. When the alarm sounded throughout the building, Price and Michelle swung into action by putting on their bright orange vests and ushering us all to the stairwell.

Thanks to the guidance of our fearless leaders, all team members quickly made it to safety on the sidewalk. In fact, building administration awarded NST for our efficiency at evacuating in a timely manner (the hustle of some staff members may have been motivated by a client conference call taking place during the drill). Our prize was a backpack full of emergency supplies, making NST that much more prepared for handling a crisis situation.

NST staff members makes it safely to the meeting destination.

At one point or another you may have heard someone say, “The problem in San Diego is that we have no leadership.” Do you agree?

For Mary Walshok, associate vice chancellor of extended studies at UCSD,  the answer is a strong “no.” Walshok recently helped welcome LEAD San Diego’s 2012 IMPACT class.  And while her welcome was short and sweet (about 10 minutes), her words were thought provoking, prompting me — and presumably others in the class — to wonder: what is the role of “leaders” today? Further, what does “leadership” in the future look like?

Walshok advocated that when you have diversity, you have multiple centers of leadership.

“The challenge then becomes, mobilizing these multiple centers of leadership around common causes,” said Walshok, who went on to offer three things needed for leadership.

First, people need to know how and where to access knowledge. Secondly, leaders need to network, including bridging the gap between those individuals with a hyper-local focus, i.e. localites and those who are more cosmopolitan, or global. Lastly, Walshok argues that leaders must know how to harvest the skills of others and empower them.

LEAD San Diego seeks to advance the quality of life in San Diego through a growing network of capable and engaged civic leaders. What does being a leader mean to you? And what skills do you think are needed to demonstrate great leadership?

Recently, I was driving home from a meeting in Los Angeles with a colleague, when she asked me (somewhat out of the blue) what I thought her strengths and weaknesses are.  Put on the spot, I considered her question and it struck me that perhaps one of her biggest strengths was the fact that she was asking me this question at all.

Lao Tzu once said: “He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.” The concept of self awareness – and its relationship to great leadership – was the crux of a recent seminar as part of LEAD San Diego’s 2012 IMPACT class.

“Leadership development is a lifelong journey,” said George Reed, University of San Diego professor, who presented to the LEAD cohort of 60 participants.

Reed offered the class tools to help assess their personality and change leadership style, including the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which measures psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions, and the Change Style Indicator, which measures preferred styles in approaching and dealing with change.  These are just a few of the tools offered to help leaders become more self aware, and while the results can be interesting, the real value of these tests is not in the results themselves, but in what you do with them.

Reed argues that results shouldn’t be used to describe your personality “type,” but rather results should be used to help guide your actions – even if that makes you uncomfortable.

“Like right-handedness or left-handedness, personality is hard wired … Leaders must work against their preferences all the time,” said Reed.

I walked away knowing that not only am I a “ISTJ” (preferences toward Introversion, Sensing, Thinking and Judging) on the Myers-Briggs scale, but also – and more importantly – I was more self aware and curious about others who I interact with both professionally and personality.  While every assessment and tool has its flaws, each can also provide good insight to help inspire improved leadership, which is a principle at the core of LEAD San Diego.

Updated 10/4.

Nuffer Smith Tucker Wins Heilbron Award

At the recent memorial service for NST’s co-founder, Dave Nuffer, Mayor Jerry Sanders said he thought no one cared about San Diego more than Dave Nuffer.  It’s true – Dave loved America’s Finest City (and its neighboring cities south of the border) and was happy to provide communications counsel to anyone helping to make it a better place to live, work and play.

Following in Dave’s footsteps, we at Nuffer, Smith, Tucker believe it’s important to give back – it not only helps those in need and sets an example for other organizations, but it also makes us a better team.  On June 23, 2011, NST was honored at the inaugural Heilbron Awards, presented by San Diego Rotary Club 33 and the San Diego Business Journal to companies that exhibit high ethical standards, a commitment to community service and a willingness to utilize its professional skill sets to help others in the community.  We were among a group of outstanding San Diego organizations recognized and are very grateful to be included in such great company.

Whether you’re a plumber or a PR practitioner, we all have something of value we can use to help those in need.  NST’s team members serve on a variety of non-profit boards, regularly volunteer for local non-profit organizations and provide pro-bono counsel to clients, to name a few things.  What type of things do you or your professional team do to “pay it forward” and make your community a better place?