The Emerging Leaders Academy: Celebrating 20 Years of Life-Changing Experiences

0:00:00.2 Aaron Bergeson: It was truly, not just career-changing, but life-changing.

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0:00:04.2 Bailey Dickman: The Emerging Leaders Academy, or ELA, is a year-long experience providing leadership and management education to the next generation of public works leaders. This year-long program features a popular in-person retreat in Kansas City, monthly check-ins with experienced instructors, and more. Academy members are divided into groups and work throughout the year to solve a public works related challenge that they then present at our PWX conference the following year. Proving time and time again that leadership happens at every level. ELA helps build a robust peer support network and offers an in-depth introduction to APWA. For more context, here’s Aaron Bergeson. He’s a public transit professional in Southern California and a class of 2025 ELA graduate.

0:00:43.7 Aaron Bergeson: It’s kinda squashed a lot of fear, if I’m being honest. It squashed a lot of fear in conversations from my peers to the City Manager to whoever it is. It’s a reminder that we’re all just people. It’s all about human connection.

0:01:00.9 Bailey Dickman: ELA isn’t just a classroom, it’s an immersive experience. And this next class will be the 20th cohort in the program’s history. Sue Hann has been with ELA since day one. She serves as the Deputy Superintendent of Facility Services at Brevard Public Schools in Florida, and she has over 45 years of professional experience in public works.

0:01:18.5 Susan Hann: It really sets you on a trajectory to grow faster than you would had you not been part of ELA. You should assume it will change your life and dive in and enjoy, enjoy the experience.

0:01:30.8 Bailey Dickman: Welcome back to Public Works Radio, the official voice of the American Public Works Association. This week we’re talking about making lifelong connections and participating in something much bigger than yourself. For more on ELA, here’s Chad Oxton, better known to public workers as Chad O. He’s an ELA graduate, instructor, and a career public works professional specializing in leadership and management.

0:01:50.5 Chad Oxton: It has been part of a futuristic vision of doing something great forever, not just doing something great for now.

0:01:59.0 Bailey Dickman: And if you’re even thinking about applying for this upcoming cohort, you need to just go for it, because, as we learned from Aaron, there’s a ton of upside to simply engaging in the application process.

0:02:09.4 Aaron Bergeson: Process of trying to apply is also valuable because you need to force yourself to interact with people that you work with closely and ask them for letters of recommendation. With all that being said, the connections of being in this academy, in this program, are just countless. I can expand on this forever, but the connections are so important.

0:02:33.4 Bailey Dickman: Applications are open now, so visit the link in the description to learn more. Let’s get into it. Here’s my conversation with Susan Hann, Aaron Bergeson, and Chad O.

0:02:42.0 Bailey Dickman: What is the Emerging Leaders Academy?

0:02:44.0 Chad Oxton: So the Emerging Leaders Academy is an opportunity for fledgling leaders in the public works realm to come together and instead of being focused on so much of the management, so we have a lot of jobs that are titled this manager or that manager, and very rarely are the job titles public works leader, that it is a year-long program designed to train and inspire and encourage leadership at all levels. When I started in the Emerging Leaders Academy, I was a Superintendent. Most recently, I’ve been an Operations Manager. And I meet people who are technicians, senior technicians, junior associates, etcetera, all, whatever titles they throw at things. And one thing that Sue and Diane and Steve and the current core of instructors really espouse is that leadership happens at every level for folks who are inspired and empowered to be a leader.

0:03:52.0 Susan Hann: Absolutely agree, Chad. And I want to talk a little bit about the concept of the Emerging Leaders Academy. So when you listen to the title, you think, oh, academy. And I’ve heard some participants say, “Well, when I got here, I expected this to be a class.” Well, it’s way more than a class. It’s really an experience, and it’s an experience that’s immersive. It’s about learning leadership. It’s about building relationships. It’s about getting to know yourself and techniques to get to know others and what their strengths are and how to bring out the best in people. It’s about learning how to lead change. If you’re doing any sort of leadership, you’re gonna be making some changes, and you’ve gotta learn how to navigate those changes. Learning how to build teams from people who have very diverse skill sets from yours. You don’t want everybody on your team that looks just like you and acts just like you. You want to learn how to build a team of diverse strengths and talents so that you can do your best for your organization or your community.

0:04:59.9 Bailey Dickman: This is the program’s 20th year. It’s the 20th class coming in. Sue, you’ve been around for all of it. How has the program developed and changed over the last 20 years?

0:05:09.7 Susan Hann: So what I think is really cool about the program, and Chad, you can weigh in on this too, the program evolves with the class members. So as instructors, we really get to know the class, and we design the curriculum for the class based on the class members. So sometimes we’re dealing with like generational issues. That’s something that everybody’s concerned about. Sometimes we’re not. It just sort of depends on what comes out of that particular class. And as we do some of the introductory exercises, we can really get to know folks and evolve the content of the Emerging Leaders Academy experience based on the issues that are pressing for that group of leaders. I think, Chad, the homework evolves in that way too now still right?

0:05:52.8 Chad Oxton: Oh, absolutely. So from day one of the immersive retreat in Kansas City. So folks, when you do apply, just know when you come to Kansas City that the APWA is going to have your full attention for nearly 16 hours a day, and you’re gonna love it. It’s not a bad kind of immersive. It is not forced fun. It is genuine fun and camaraderie. But the instructor corps, we read in advance some of the leadership challenges that are being faced, and we have a stockpile of information at hand, old notes, things that are left on the cutting room floor, as they would say, that we haven’t used, or we adapt on the fly. And I feel like we adapt brilliantly on the fly to address these things because the folks at the front of the room, the APWA instructors, come to the class with careers’ worth of experience in training and in leadership to talk about that stuff.

0:07:02.3 Bailey Dickman: For so many reasons that you will hear throughout this conversation, it’s tough to call out just one aspect of ELA that proves to be the most valuable. But as we learned from Aaron, the on-site retreat in Kansas City emerged as a life-changing experience that still impacts him to this day.

0:07:16.0 Aaron Bergeson: Speaking to the retreat, it was truly, not just career-changing but life-changing, to be able to not only get into the room with the instructors and your wealth of knowledge and many years of doing this program, but to make these really strong connections with other individuals in public works that may or may not be facing similar challenges, different challenges. I’ve made lifelong friends and professional connections that is completely invaluable.

0:07:45.7 Bailey Dickman: What’s your most memorable experience as part of ELA?

0:07:48.9 Aaron Bergeson: My most memorable experience… Really, I don’t know. I don’t know that I can pin it down to one thing. The retreat was truly amazing to make such strong connections so fast with such a big group of people. It’s hard to explain how impactful that is, particularly in a field that I think can feel isolating. So that was really impactful to me. But then, fast-forward to the very end of the program, I was able to have a one-on-one conversation with APWA President Vic Bianes and get some mentorship from him. And that mentorship really drove me to pursue my passion, which is public transit. The impact is far and wide. I can’t really pinpoint a single moment.

0:08:41.7 Chad Oxton: For me, it actually came at the wrap-up on the ride back to the airport or curbside at the hotel waiting to go back to the airport. And so I went to the Emerging Leaders Academy. I was shook by who I was in the room with, flattered by my new peer group. I was like, “Oh, wow.” At the end of it all, this was pre-Uber, and I was out curbside waiting, and here comes Sue, bright and early, 3:30 in the morning, ready to go. And she said, “You’re heading where I’m heading. You want to jump in with me?” So I jumped in with Sue. And again, it’s flattering. I’m not used to being in that position, and due to some past careers, some people were exalted in their status, and Sue held that exalted level in my eyes. And the 45-minute or 40-minute ride from the hotel to the airport with Sue, the one-on-one time, just like Aaron with Vic, that access to a one-on-one mentor and being felt welcome and being felt seen by somebody that I immediately had great respect for, I mean, it leapfrogged my career, it leapfrogged my inner thinking, some of my inner processes. And so of all of the memorable experiences, and there are a lot of them, that is top of them. And I, not only do I not forget it, but when I interact with students in the Emerging Leaders Academy, I want to make sure that they feel exactly the same way, that they are welcome there, that they are expected to be there, that everybody in the room, despite how we see titles and other social indicators, that everybody in the room is there because they’ve earned it and they’re supposed to be there.

0:10:35.5 Susan Hann: Frankly, my most memorable experience was the Chad O experience so. And I say that a little bit jokingly, but it’s also very true. As an instructor, we get to meet some extraordinary people who don’t know they’re extraordinary. And Chad O is one of those guys. Like when we met Chad that day at the Emerging Leaders retreat, it’s like, “Oh my gosh, this guy is such a leader.” And so we were excited to have him in the class and able to kind of work with him to show him the potential that you have as a leader in your organization, your community, is just huge. And it’s so cool being an instructor because I learned a lot from Chad. I went on to use some of the practices that he had in his organization. It’s like a learning experience in both directions. And so that was my most memorable experience. But I gotta say a couple others, if you don’t mind, Bailey.

0:11:41.1 Bailey Dickman: Yeah.

0:11:41.7 Susan Hann: When we first started doing the Insight Inventory tool as part of the introductory piece of the retreat, so everybody kind of learns a little bit about their personalities, and the way that that exercise is done, you clearly see the group of people that are just like you and the group of people that are gonna drive you crazy. And it allows you to realize that as a leader, those people have extraordinary value too. They’re not just the people who drive you crazy. They have a really cool skill set, and you as a leader have to figure out how to wrangle that skill set into a productive leadership role in your organization. It’s not someone to dismiss. And kind of along those lines, I think as an instructor, the most powerful thing I’ve seen over the years is from that first day at the retreat when everybody’s kind of like, “Oh, not really sure what’s going on here,” to the day they walk across the stage at PWX, many of the students have truly transformed into true leaders, and they are taking on roles in APWA, in their chapters, in their organizations. Some of them have made decisions to do something else with their life because where they were wasn’t the right place for them. And they learned that through having those conversations with the network that came out of the Emerging Leaders Academy.

0:13:12.7 Bailey Dickman: So applications for the Emerging Leaders Academy Class of 2026-2027 are just opening up. If someone is thinking about applying but they’re not quite sure, what’s one thing you would share with them to get them moving ahead on an application?

0:13:28.4 Chad Oxton: If you’re thinking about it, then you probably ought to apply, and there is no downside to it. It can be a challenge, but it’s not the most challenging challenge that you’re gonna face in your career. That the return on investment is always great wherever you’re at. If you think that you are too new in your journey to be part of the ELA, you should apply. If you think that you’re too far into your journey, then you should apply. Do not self-select out of the candidate pool. Put yourself into the candidate pool, and if or when you’re selected, you will not regret it.

0:14:07.9 Susan Hann: Yep. I completely agree. And that’s really what makes a great class is folks that have different levels of experience. The class members also become instructors as we go through the class. So completely agree with both of you.

0:14:24.7 Aaron Bergeson: Yeah, I was in my first year in public works when I applied, so it’s never too soon to jump right in.

0:14:33.1 Bailey Dickman: How has being part of the ELA changed you as a public works professional or as a leader? Is there something that you can point to and go, “Oh, I do that because of a lesson I learned in ELA”?

0:14:46.1 Susan Hann: So I’ll start. I learned so much from being part of the ELA experience. Even as an instructor, it’s so immersive that the instructors are sort of part of the immersive experience, and you’re learning too. And I learned literally how to be a better leader by talking through a lot of the challenges that came out of the class discussions. And I did this for 15, 16 years. There were so many scenarios that we talked about that echoed some of the things that were going on in my organization. There’s not a one-size-fits-all solution to every problem. And so it was just really good to talk through those types of challenges and scenarios. And I literally learned something from every single class, even as an instructor.

0:15:37.3 Aaron Bergeson: I think it’s changed me in a lot of ways. I’m a very social person. I’ve always been a very social person. But I think that one thing that I really gained from it and really just kind of happens in my every step now is really understanding what my values are, both personally and professionally. And that was something that ELA helped me not only develop but really hold on to. So I think that that’s, that’s a big way that it’s changed me. And it’s kind of squashed a lot of fear, if I’m being honest. It squashed a lot of fear in conversations from my peers to the city manager to whoever it is. It’s a reminder that we’re all just people. It’s all about human connection.

0:16:34.0 Bailey Dickman: What would you like listeners to walk away from this knowing about ELA?

0:16:40.7 Susan Hann: So I think, Aaron, you alluded to it. It will change your life. You should assume it will change your life and dive in and enjoy the experience.

0:17:23.6 Aaron Bergeson: Without demeaning the folks who don’t get selected, because every year I hear there are more and more and more candidates, and despite that we’ve gone from 16 students in the Emerging Leaders Academy to 32 students in the Emerging Leaders Academy, the number of applicants has gone up exponentially. The Emerging Leaders Academy, if you’re looking for the pool of future greatness of Emerging Leaders, in fact, without divulging too much, there’s a thought process identifying in the future some of the, for lack of a better term, the emerged, Emerged Leaders. Aaron and I, this is who we are. We went there as Emerging Leaders and we have since become the leaders. And when you look at the Emerging Leaders Academy, every year, every class, every cadre of Emerging Leaders Academy, those are the future movers, influencers in the public works realm. And the God’s honest truth is we want you to join us.

0:18:02.0 Aaron Bergeson: I would say apply and apply again. I’ve got colleagues that applied this year and didn’t get in. I would express that you shouldn’t let that divert you from not applying again because the process of trying to apply is also valuable because not only are you attempting to get into this program, but you need to force yourself to kind of interact with people that you work with closely and ask them for letters of recommendation. And I think that there’s a lot of value in the application process. With all that being said, the connections of being in this academy, in this program, are just countless. I can expand on this forever, but the connections are so important. That’s what I would say.

0:18:50.2 Bailey Dickman: ELA doesn’t just benefit the individual. It has a serious benefit to the department you belong to and to the community that relies on you.

0:18:57.3 Susan Hann: Sometimes folks who are applying, they need to know what to tell their employer. What value does this bring to your employer? It’s a lot of time. It costs a little bit of money. So I think it’s important for folks to know and to be able to articulate that not only does it work really well for you personally, but it also grows you as a leader for your organization. And I think that brings a huge value to the organization that you represent too. So it’s not just about you personally. It’s also about bringing more and more high-quality leadership to your team back at the office.

0:19:36.1 Chad Oxton: And I’ll say this, that any employee who is encouraged and supported and sent off to be part of the Emerging Leaders Academy cannot come back to the organization and just keep that to themselves. The leader that they are will shine brighter. Or there’s no way to stifle that. After the retreat, we have monthly homeworks. We go to PWX. We continue to grow our network. The chapter networks have a great tendency of also reaching out and wanting to bring them in. So it may feel like it’s a thing for a single person, but everybody who is in that person’s touch, their tangents, are going to experience it. They’re going to come back with leadership thoughts, leadership ideals, willingness to train, willingness to be a force multiplier to make it better. The justification for being part of the Emerging Leaders Academy is just huge, and it only makes every part of the organization better.

0:20:42.4 Bailey Dickman: Leadership education is kind of notoriously nebulous and difficult to do. Why do you think ELA has been so successful in its mission?

0:20:54.2 Aaron Bergeson: I think that it is something that has clearly become so valuable to the people that are coming out of it that it’s amorphous. Like the word of mouth of graduating classes is just going to keep growing and growing and growing exponentially. Because I don’t know where it started, but I know where it was last year. And if it was that impactful to me, then I can only imagine that the 31, 32 other people that were in that class with me, it was that impactful. And that is just going to spread like wildfire.

0:21:33.7 Susan Hann: Well, I think too, you can see so much evidence of success. You see it in the chapter leaders, you see it in the leaders on the national board, you see it in the instructors. You can see how successful it has been, and you can see the leaders that have come out of the program and they are doing great things, whether it’s for their own organization or their chapter or APWA National. They are doing great things. So you can see the results. And I think, Aaron, you can probably speak to this as well as Chad, but as an ELA member, it broadened your view and interest in leadership. And so you sought out more leadership opportunities and more leadership growth. And it really sets you on a trajectory to grow faster than you would had you not been part of ELA.

0:22:25.2 Chad Oxton: It obviously delivers results because some of the people who are on some of the board of directors are former Emerging Leaders Academy graduates. And so this becomes that greatness is building greatness. So from the very first class 20 years ago until now, it has been part of a futuristic vision of doing something great forever, not just doing something great for now.

0:22:51.2 Bailey Dickman: What are you most proud of relating to ELA? Either the work that you’ve done or the work you’ve seen other people do. What are you most proud of?

0:23:00.3 Susan Hann: I am so proud of the people that have gone through the Emerging Leaders Academy that I see doing great things in leadership. I referred to myself as ELA mom for a while. I feel like these folks are my family and we grew up in leadership together. And just seeing the amazing things that they are doing, I’m just really so proud of the program. And I’m so proud of the people that have taken what they learned in the ELA experience and just applied it in such amazing ways. And a lot of those folks have also then passed that down to others in their organization. So it’s not just I went and nobody else can go, it’s I went and, wow, you need to go too. And so there’s whole agencies out there that are just full of great leaders and they’re going to be doing great things. So I’m just really proud of all the wonderful things that our graduates have accomplished.

0:24:01.0 Chad Oxton: So for me, I’m proud to be able to give back, to be part of that and to be in a position to be allowed to stand at the front of the room and speak to folks and be part of something bigger is flattering. And I love it every time, every chance I get to do it.

0:24:20.0 Aaron Bergeson: I’m gonna start by saying I’m proud of myself. And I’m proud of being able to be as vulnerable as I was in the retreat and to open up to a whole new group of strangers. I think that men are really bad about this and it’s not said often enough. You can be proud of being vulnerable. And I’m proud of what I was able to take with me from the Emerging Leaders Academy. And now I’m able to share that with my colleagues, with my friends, with the connections I’ve been able to pass along to my spouse who’s getting her MBA at UCLA now, working on a project, coming up with solutions for local governments, and being able to connect her with other individuals that I met at ELA. So I’m proud of what I did, but I’m also proud of being able to kind of take that with me and let it go out into the world.

0:25:21.7 Bailey Dickman: So as we wrap up here, is there anything that I forgot to ask you about? Is there any last thing you’d like to say about ELA?

0:25:33.4 Susan Hann: It’s unexpected when you go to something that you think is gonna be a class that you actually end up with lifelong friends that you depend on when you have a situation going on in your life that’s challenging, you have a whole network of people that can help you with that. And I just really feel like it has been a gift for me to be involved with the Emerging Leaders Academy because it has just been so amazing on so many levels and has made my life so much better.

0:26:06.7 Aaron Bergeson: I want to jump in and echo that, Sue. I think that this industry can be really taxing on your mental and physical health, and that connection made with others that are going through the same thing that you can reach out and say, “Hey, I’m going through this. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to answer this question,” or really just even having that camaraderie of understanding that you’re not alone, whether I’m talking to Chad O all the way across the country or somebody that’s nearby dealing with the same thing. I think that I really just want to express that connection and how much it can help you in a very, very stressful industry. And I know we all know it. It’s never-ending. The phone is always on. And so I’ll express the connection with other ELA students, but also, as I mentioned before, if you want to apply and you have any questions and you want to reach out to me, reach out. Or if you don’t want to apply and you’re in public works and you want to commiserate, my LinkedIn is open. Send me a message.

0:27:14.1 Chad Oxton: There is so much unexpected greatness that you can’t anticipate it. Whatever your anticipation is for being a part of the Emerging Leaders Academy and, again, I mentioned being a visionary, like, “Oh, I’m gonna go to the Emerging Leaders Academy. I’m going to get this, this, this,” my shopping list of things that I’m gonna get, you can’t, because it’s gonna change with every class, it’s gonna change with every interpersonal relationship that you gain. My network has gone from the folks that were in my class to the folks who work with the folks who were in my class, to the people I’ve met at the Snow conferences, at PWXs, to APWA staff. And it just, every time I turn around, it seems like the good things in my career and, to some degree, then the good things in my life because I’ve met some fellow travelers, are all, they all tie back somehow to the Emerging Leaders Academy. And I couldn’t be happier for it.

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0:28:19.4 Bailey Dickman: Emerging Leaders Academy applications are open now for the 2026-2027 cohort. Trust me, you’re gonna want to apply. Check out apwa.org/ela for more information. Thank you for listening to Public Works Radio, the official voice of the American Public Works Association. And thank you again to today’s guests, Sue Hann, Aaron Bergeson, and Chad O. Make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, rate it, review it, and forward us along to a friend. And don’t be shy about dropping us a note over at podcast@apwa.org so we can hear your feedback directly. We’ll catch you next time.