Twenty-four local municipal employees recently graduated from the Goodman School of Business’s NextGen Municipal Leadership Program.

The employees were from nine Niagara municipalities, including St. Catharines, Fort Erie, Pelham and Lincoln. They learned about many topics, including managing in a union environment, leading in a political situation, and employee engagement and team-building strategies for the 21st century.

“This is a good example of how the Goodman School of Business is committed to offering programs and seminars geared towards the Niagara Region,” said Don Cyr, Goodman Dean.

NextGen is a staff development and training program for municipal employees in a supervisory role or who aspire to fill a management role in Niagara. It was developed by the Goodman School’s Centre for Innovation, Management and Enterprise Education (CIMEE) in conjunction with Niagara’s 12 municipalities, and came to be as a result of concerns that local chief administrative officers (CAOs) and human resources specialists had about the impact of retirements and mobility issues on municipal staff.

The program is a series of seminars led by leadership and human resources experts.

Thorold CAO Frank Fabiano sat on the program’s founding advisory committee. He credited the vision of Niagara’s CAOs for making NextGen happen.

“This will mushroom into something huge in Niagara: getting people to understand each other,” he said about the program’s potential.

NextGen will run again in spring 2014.