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Saturday, August 15, 2009
Mayor Tom Leppert Keynotes 3rd UT Dallas Project Management Symposium
Reported by Ann R. Miller in Dallas
The 3rd Annual UT Dallas Project Management Symposium opened on Thursday 13 August 2009 with welcomes by Mr. James Joiner, Director of the Graduate Program in Project Management at The UT Dallas and Mr. Hasan Pirkul, PhD, Dean of The UT Dallas School of Management. Following the first keynote speaker, Mr. James Reilly, the popular mayor of the City of Dallas, Tom Leppert, provided the second keynote of the symposium. Mr. Leppert was elected mayor of Dallas, Texas, USA in June 2007, and was named "Top CEO in Dallas" in 2008. Since taking office, The Mayor and the City Council have pursued policies that have dramatically improved the quality of life in Dallas.
The 3rd Annual UT Dallas Project Management Symposium, held in the School of Management on The UT Dallas campus in Richardson, Texas during 13-14 August 2009, was organized by the Graduate Program in Project Management (PM) in the School of Management's Executive Education Center at UT Dallas, in partnership with the Dallas Chapter of the Project Management Institute (PMI®) and PMForum. The theme for this year's UT Dallas Project Management Symposium was "Managing in a Changing World".
During his keynote speech, Mayor Leppert (pictured right) offered insight into public service by drawing similarities to effective leadership in the private sector, most notably the ability to work with people. He went on to describe new fundamentals of leadership to include being a strategist, a communicator, and an educator, and offered stories of this definition of leadership at work as mayor. He further noted that the ability to see the big picture, to be flexible and handle change, was vital in a volatile economy, as predictability no longer works.
Mayor Leppert has previously led major corporations in the areas of construction, financial services and real estate. As CEO of Turner Construction, he moved the Fortune 500 firm's headquarters to Dallas. He also was chair of the Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce and still serves on its Executive Committee.
A lifelong community volunteer, he has served numerous community groups and charitable organizations on both the local and national levels. The Mayor served as a White House fellow in both the Treasury Department and in the White House. Mayor Leppert holds an M.B.A. with Distinction from Harvard Business School and graduated cum laude from Claremont McKenna College. He and his wife Laura live in Dallas. Their son Christian and twins, Catherine and Ryan are all in college.
Since his election as mayor, the City of Dallas has seen major firms like AT&T and Tenet Healthcare have moved to Downtown Dallas, and construction is underway on Main Street Garden, the Woodall Rogers Deck Park and the first Calatrava-designed bridge over the Trinity River. New games have found a home at the Cotton Bowl in Fair Park, and new plants in Southern Dallas and at the Inland Port have created hundreds of new jobs.
Mayor Leppert described a very positive outlook for the City of Dallas, stating that Dallas had capitalized on the past year's economic downturn. He identified several key city objectives and accomplishments to date, including a holistic approach toward the environment encompassing both public and private sector green building. He also boasted a 25% reduction in crime since he took office in 2007. In keeping with the theme of the symposium, Mr. Leppert credited project management with enabling him to execute his strategies.
Photos: Left - Jim Joiner of UT Dallas and Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert; Right - Joiner thanks Mayor Leppert for his presentation. Photos courtesy of PMForum.
Other events on 13 August included 24 professional presentations in five streams by project management experts and professional practitioners. The day ended with a networking reception for participants in the atrium in the School of Management. Official attendance on day one was approximately 225. To see the full program, visit http://som.utdallas.edu/graduate/execed/projectMgmtProg/projSymposium/.
The Project Management Program at UT Dallas provides application-oriented education for professionals with significant project, program or general management responsibilities. Established in the Executive Education Center in The UT Dallas' School of Management, students have the option of earning a Certificate in Project Management, a Master of Science degree with an emphasis in project management, or a Master of Business Administration degree with project management emphasis.
The UT Dallas PM program, originally developed in 1997, is accredited by the Global Accreditation Center for Project Management (GAC) of Project Management Institute (PMI®) and is a PMI Registered Education Provider Program (PMI R.E.P.). The program is taught by world-class faculty with a blend of industrial project management, consulting and teaching experience. The UT Dallas PM Program is delivered both on campus and online, and attracts students from across the USA and worldwide. For more information, visit http://som.utdallas.edu/project/.
The PMI Dallas Chapter is a volunteer-based professional association dedicated to supporting the growth and development of project management practitioners, as well as building awareness of the project management discipline and its critical role in business and organization success. With more than half a million members and credential holders in over 170 countries, the Project Management Institute (PMI®) is the leading membership association for the project management profession. Founded in 1984 and with over 4,000 members, the PMI Dallas Chapter is one of the world's largest PMI components. To learn more about the PMI Dallas Chapter and its service offerings, visit www.pmidallas.org
PMForum operates www.pmforum.org, the world's first website devoted to professional project management and still one of the world's most popular sources of project management news and information. PMForum also produces the monthly online PM World Today eJournal where articles, case studies, papers and stories by leading PM authorities from around the world can be found; free subscriptions are available at www.pmworldtoday.net.
The 3rd Annual UT Dallas Project Management Symposium opened on Thursday 13 August 2009 with welcomes by Mr. James Joiner, Director of the Graduate Program in Project Management at The UT Dallas and Mr. Hasan Pirkul, PhD, Dean of The UT Dallas School of Management. Following the first keynote speaker, Mr. James Reilly, the popular mayor of the City of Dallas, Tom Leppert, provided the second keynote of the symposium. Mr. Leppert was elected mayor of Dallas, Texas, USA in June 2007, and was named "Top CEO in Dallas" in 2008. Since taking office, The Mayor and the City Council have pursued policies that have dramatically improved the quality of life in Dallas.
The 3rd Annual UT Dallas Project Management Symposium, held in the School of Management on The UT Dallas campus in Richardson, Texas during 13-14 August 2009, was organized by the Graduate Program in Project Management (PM) in the School of Management's Executive Education Center at UT Dallas, in partnership with the Dallas Chapter of the Project Management Institute (PMI®) and PMForum. The theme for this year's UT Dallas Project Management Symposium was "Managing in a Changing World".
Mayor Leppert has previously led major corporations in the areas of construction, financial services and real estate. As CEO of Turner Construction, he moved the Fortune 500 firm's headquarters to Dallas. He also was chair of the Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce and still serves on its Executive Committee.
A lifelong community volunteer, he has served numerous community groups and charitable organizations on both the local and national levels. The Mayor served as a White House fellow in both the Treasury Department and in the White House. Mayor Leppert holds an M.B.A. with Distinction from Harvard Business School and graduated cum laude from Claremont McKenna College. He and his wife Laura live in Dallas. Their son Christian and twins, Catherine and Ryan are all in college.
Since his election as mayor, the City of Dallas has seen major firms like AT&T and Tenet Healthcare have moved to Downtown Dallas, and construction is underway on Main Street Garden, the Woodall Rogers Deck Park and the first Calatrava-designed bridge over the Trinity River. New games have found a home at the Cotton Bowl in Fair Park, and new plants in Southern Dallas and at the Inland Port have created hundreds of new jobs.
Mayor Leppert described a very positive outlook for the City of Dallas, stating that Dallas had capitalized on the past year's economic downturn. He identified several key city objectives and accomplishments to date, including a holistic approach toward the environment encompassing both public and private sector green building. He also boasted a 25% reduction in crime since he took office in 2007. In keeping with the theme of the symposium, Mr. Leppert credited project management with enabling him to execute his strategies.
Other events on 13 August included 24 professional presentations in five streams by project management experts and professional practitioners. The day ended with a networking reception for participants in the atrium in the School of Management. Official attendance on day one was approximately 225. To see the full program, visit http://som.utdallas.edu/graduate/execed/projectMgmtProg/projSymposium/.