E12 Eric Wright Founder Vets2PM and Vet Stone and John Baley President and Nicole Langston VP Marketing from PMI Phoenix
In this episode of Project Management Office Hours, Joe Pusz, PMO Joe has a great discussion with special guests Eric Wright, Founder Vets2PM, and John Baley, President and Nicole Langston, VP Marketing from the PMI Phoenix Chapter. John and Nicole provide great insight into the activities and benefits of membership in the Phoenix PMI Chapter. Eric gives us a clear understanding how service in the military can translate to a civilian Project Management career. We also received several questions/comments from Twitter and encourage listeners to interact with guests tweeting questions using #pmojoe.
Eric kicks off our discussion providing background and his motivation for starting both Vets2PM and Vet Stone. As a decorated two-Service, two-Era United States Military Veteran, Eric shares his in-depth understanding of how to translate military experience to project management for developing resumes, preparing for PMP certification and landing a PM job in the CIVDIV. The Vets2PM team encourages participants to join local PMI chapters and actively participate. Joe and Eric also share with us the Veterans Project Management Mentoring Program they kicked off in January serving over 50 Veterans across 29 states and 3 countries. Listen to hear Eric respond to Twitter questions, “Has the military adopted standard project management processes such as those from PMI? Do they prefer to use their own brand of project management processes?”
John and Nicole share all the events and activities ongoing within the Phoenix PMI Chapter. This is the 40th anniversary for the Chapter and the year has been highlighted by a great series of speakers and educational opportunities including James Snyder, Harold Kerzner, Dr James Brown, and most recently Steven Fullmer. The Chapter conducts dinner meetings every other month and has numerous breakfast meetings and social events. John and Nicole also share the work the Chapter is doing to assist members and Veterans with career services and mentoring. Great feedback for John came in from Twitter, “I want to commend John and the Phoenix PMI chapter for expanding PMI meetings beyond that of just the Phoenix area.”
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Tune in for upcoming shows with Project Management leaders discussing a wide range of current topics and events!
The PMI Phoenix Chapter is your local Valley of the Sun link to the Project Management Institute (PMI), the largest and most diverse international organization in the world dedicated to the profession of project management. The Chapter was founded in 1978, as the 29th Chapter to be chartered in the United States. The Chapter has grown and evolved, and today it has approximately 2400+ members, representing project management in industry, consulting, government and academia. Over two-thirds of our members have earned the PMP credentials. We were incorporated on September 29, 2000 as a 501(c)(6) non-profit corporation as defined by the United States Internal Revenue Service.
John C. Baley has been in Information Technology for the past 30 years and is currently retired. Most of his experience is in IT Systems Development and Data Center Operations area. He has worked on Projects or Programs for many of the largest Petroleum and Retail companies in the world, such as Shell Oil, Conoco/Phillips, JCPenney, 7-Eleven, CITGO and Union 76.
John also is a top strategic volunteer for PMI, having been a volunteer for the past thirteen years. He started his volunteer work with the Dallas Chapter of PMI. He was the President from 2004 -2006 as the chapter continued in growth, and lead changes in the Chapter board structure adding positions to meet that growth. He left the Presidency to take on the Region 6 Mentor role for PMI, Region 6 is the South Central North America region containing 20 chapters. He then worked on the Chapter Member Advisory Group for three years followed by the OPMAG for three years. After that he worked on a special Chapter Awards project while sitting on the Alaska BOD as a Director at Large and is currently in a new role of Chapter Mediator for PMI.
John earned his PMP Certification in 2002, and graduated with a Masters of Business Administration from University of Texas at Dallas in December of 2007.
Nicole Langston is a successful Project Manager across with experience in Technology and Digital projects. Nicole has extensive experience across a variety of industries (Pharmaceutical, HealthCare, Employee Benefits, Insurance, Technology, TelCo and Hospitality). Her background includes software implementation, website builds, training, process development and improvement.
Nicole’s digital knowledge complements the technical and her role within the Chapter. Nicole joined PMI in 2012, and has been an active volunteer since 2014. Nicole held Social Media Director and was promoted this year to the VP of Marketing on the board. Nicole enjoys giving back to the PMI community and helping mentor future PM’s.
Nicole has been an active volunteer with Career Connectors as a LinkedIn and Job seeker coach since 2011. Nicole also does freelance digital marketing, social media and LinkedIn coaching.
Connect with Nicole on LinkedIn and follow PMI Phoenix on Facebook.
Vets2PM helps Military Veterans become Project Managers. We do this through professional PM-specific education, training, preparation and placement, for the Veteran’s lifetime!
One of our services is PMP application completion and defense, and we provide a proven, secure, cloud-based deep learning AI algorithm to them to help them do so easily and accurately! Vet Stone software is the tool, and it’s brought to them free of charge by Vet Stone, LLC; my AI software development company.
Eric Wright is a decorated two-Service, two-Era United States Military Veteran; Founder and CEO of Vets2PM, LLC and Vet Stone, LLC; an experienced, credentialed project manager and PMI-Chapter recognized mentor; and an entertaining instructor/public speaker on project management, deep learning and the military transition, PMI’s PMP® and CAPM® exams, and on project manager development. He helps Military Veterans change their lives profoundly through project management through inspiration, translation, training, and placement. For more information, please visit http://www.vets2pm.com or https://militaryvetstone.com/.
Connect with Eric on LinkedIn and follow Vets2PM on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
ABOUT PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE HOURS SERIES
Project Management Office Hours is intended to provide Project Management professionals a place to drop in and discuss Success Stories, Best Practices, and Lessons Learned. Project Management Consultant Joy Gumz has shared with us, “Operations keep the lights on, strategy provides the light at the end of the tunnel, but project management is the train engine that moves the organization forward.”
Each of us has a unique story to tell, but collectively we share a message that organizations who embrace Project Management Best Practices perform better than those which don’t. Organizations which align Projects to Strategy perform better. Organizations with Engage Executive Sponsors deliver better results. Organizations which measure Project Management performance outperform those which don’t.
During our Project Management Office Hours, we hear directly from Industry leaders how to make an impact in our profession. How we, collectively, will Advance Project Management Best Practices, One Listener at a time!
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ABOUT YOUR HOST
Joe Pusz started THE PMO SQUAD to bring real world PMO Leadership experience to the consulting space and to advocate for Project Management through his blog PMOJOE.com. The old saying is “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Following this mindset Joe left Corporate America in 2013 to start THE PMO SQUAD and work with fellow Natural Born Project Managers to advance Project Management Best Practices.
THE PMO SQUAD focuses exclusively on PMO and Project Management consulting. Corporate America is full of Accidental Project Managers running projects who haven’t been trained to be PMs. To help solve this problem THE PMO SQUAD is on the Leading Edge with PMO As a Service. PMO As a Service allows our clients to focus on their respective core competencies while THE PMO SQUAD delivers Project Management expertise. Contact Joe at 678-591-7868. Follow The PMO Squad on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
