Carbon County celebrated five employees who recently graduated from local and national leadership programs.

On Thursday, the commissioners highlighted a piece of correspondence, naming four county employees as graduates of the NaCo Leadership Academy. They include Nicholas Goldberg, IT specialist; Dawn Bowman, director of Human Resources; Commissioner Rocky Ahner; and Angelia Stec, parking administrator/senior technician.

The Leadership Academy aims to provide government officials on various levels with extensive training in the areas of cybersecurity and high performance leadership.

Main speakers including the late General Colin Powell, as well as executives from industry-leading organizations work with participants to go through various topics on leading others.

The High Performance Leadership Academy focuses on five essential skills: leading, organizing, collaborating, communicating and delivering. It emphasizes real-time instruction, small-group learning and knowledge exchanges.

“NACo’s High Performance Leadership Academy is a groundbreaking program designed to help county professionals achieve their full potential in service to residents,” said NACo Executive Director Matthew Chase. “Through this academy, county professionals sharpen leadership skills that are the building blocks of healthy, safe and vibrant counties across America.”

According to the academy, almost 2,200 county leaders across the U.S. enrolled in this year’s program and 114 counties joined for the first time ever.

In Pennsylvania, 46 participants from various counties enrolled.

Ahner said he thought the program was very informational and helped him learn a lot on treating people in the workplace.

He said that seeing Powell’s interactions with people was nice to witness.

Eloise Ahner, county administrator and a 2021 graduate of the academy, echoed Ahner’s thoughts, saying that the program teaches you how to lead and how to see all the different sides of a problem.

She recalled one lesson from Powell where he was speaking with then President Ronald Reagan about a problem and Reagan was watching a squirrel. At that moment, Powell realized that the problem was his own and not someone else’s to solve.

“It taught you where you could go and how you should proceed,” she said.

Goldberg also weighed in on the cybersecurity portion of the academy. He was one of 20 participants across the state to take part in this year’s program.

“The Cybersecurity Leadership Academy prepared me for my recent transition into the role of County IT System Administrator. Our IT systems are under daily and increasingly sophisticated attacks. The enhancing of my understanding of the evolving threat, the interaction with subject matter experts in the field, and well-thought curriculum, has provided me the knowledge and the leadership skills necessary to lead’s the county’s effort to secure our system and the critical information its carries,” Goldberg said.

The commissioners also highlighted Jennifer Boger, executive secretary/open records, who completed the Leadership Carbon course earlier this year.

“It’s about getting people out there,” Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein said, noting that Leadership Carbon covers so many different aspects of practices within the county. “It gives them more insight.”