07/23/2015

JAMES PEACOCK

JAMES PEACOCK, MCS

Candidate for Trustee: State Divisions

I am the owner of Peak-Careers Consulting, offering online seminars, workshops & trainings for career practitioners, and the CDF class annually since 2001. My background includes eleven years’ experience as the Director of the Advising, Career, and Transfer Center at a community college, twelve years’ experience as a high school counselor, and currently work part-time in the Colby College Career Center.

I am the president of the Maine Career Development Association (2013-15) and was the first president of MCDA in 2004 and instrumental in chartering MCDA in 2005 with NCDA. In 2007 I received NCDA’s Outstanding Career Practitioner Award. I received my Masters of Education from Oregon State University in College Student Services Administration and have been active in many professional associations throughout my career including the Association of College Unions - International, National Academic Advising Association, NCDA, Maine School Counselors Association (President in 1998), and on the Governing Board for Maine Counseling Association for many years. I am supported by my wife Deborah of 27 years, three grown boys, and two charming grandchildren. I love backpacking, playing ice hockey, and recently picked up the guitar.

GOAL STATEMENT:

I have long been committed to professional associations including the National Career Development Association. I am a true believer in their value and importance. Having served in leadership positions in the Maine Counseling Association, Maine School Counselor Association, and for over ten years with the Maine Career Development Association, I bring experience that includes success stories and “bumps and bruises” that come with any volunteer association. At NCDA in 2014, I co-presented the Building a Strong and Thriving State Career Development Association roundtable which highlighted strategies and best practices for state officers. State associations can be a great forum to provide training in your state, professional leadership opportunities, role models for people new to our field, and to raise our profession to a new level. The best way to help the greatest number of individuals in their own career development is to provide quality professional development to career practitioners.

I bring to the Trustee for State Divisions experience as a member and a leader of a variety of associations, a willingness to help other states become chartered and for those CDA’s already in existence, to engage their members. I am a practical, creative problem solver, dedicated to our profession of career development.

If elected, I would work hard to ensure that all officers in each State CDA have the information and support needed to make their state CDA the best it can be. After years of involvement at the local, state, and regional level, I am ready and excited to play a role at the national level.