Woodbury University Leadership Program Graduates First Class

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Giving tomorrow’s leaders an appropriate send-off, Woodbury University and the Boys & Girls Club of Burbank and Greater East Valley Leadership Excellence and Development (L.E.A.D.) Certification Program today graduated its first class.  The five-month certification program covered a range of organizational leadership topics.

The program is the brainchild of Woodbury University’s Paul Decker, Coordinator of Organizational Leadership Programs; Woodbury Professor Armond Aghakhanian; and Shanna Warren, Boys & Girls Club’s Chief Executive Officer.  The program was designed and taught by Prof. Aghakhanian, Boys & Girls Club Director of Operations Brittany Vaughan and three Woodbury University Masters in Organizational Leadership program students: Garett Monroe, Kandece Bennett and Sigfredo “Sig” Villegas. This project was operated by volunteers from both organizations.

In addition to parents and friends, attendees included Warren; Eric Schockman, PhD, new chair of Woodbury University’s Organizational Leadership Program & Center for Leadership; and Mary Manoukian, representative for state Assemblymember Mike Gatto, who presented each with a certificate of recognition.  Graduates also received certificates of recognition from the offices of U.S. Rep. Adam B. Schiff, State Sen. Carol Liu, Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich and Los Angeles City Councilmember Felipe Fuentes.

“As the new Chair of the Center for Leadership, it gives me great pleasure to inherit the professionally run, top-notch leadership program of Woodbury University and the Boys & Girls Club of Burbank and Greater East Valley Leadership Excellence and Development,” said Schockman.  “I applaud Prof. Aghakhanian, Paul Decker and Shanna Warren, for making this program happen. It truly marries the stellar academic work of Woodbury’s Masters of Organizational Leadership graduate students with mentoring and guiding a new crop of younger and dedicated leaders.  I am delighted that this has inspired a new effort, in the form of the L.E.A.D. Teen Academy, which will work with teenagers on leadership development.  I hopeful that this will become a model for other collaborations in the future.”

“I am very proud of our dedicated staff members who completed Woodbury University’s L.E.A.D. program,” said Warren.  “I look forward to seeing their leadership skills put in action every day within their roles at the Boys & Girls Club.  I am grateful for Woodbury and their belief in our organization and for wanting to engage our staff members in this program.”