Every year CAMFT asks its chapters to nominate their Outstanding Chapter Leader for the previous year. This year East Bay CAMFT’s Executive Committee has nominated Steven Kessler for the outstanding job he has done in the Presidency. During his tenure as President-Elect and then as President, he has shown traits of a skillful leader: a positive outlook, the ability to resolve difficulties in a calm and reasoned way and skill in smoothing out divisiveness. As we look back on 2003, we can see that Steven was the ideal person to lead the chapter during a year of change and growth. The nomination paragraph which will appear later this year in The Therapist appears below:

Since taking office as President-Elect in 2002, Steven Kessler has been an effective leader, ready to innovate and capable of attracting enthusiastic workers to the Board. When our office rent in Orinda sky-rocketed, Steven negotiated the termination of the lease and found us a new office in Berkeley at considerable savings.

As President he has recruited and supported new leaders for Board projects, living up to his May/June President’s Message: "My main job is cultivating the rest of the Board--helping them grow into the leadership roles they have chosen."

When he and several other Board members returned from the CAMFT statewide leadership conference excited about new ideas for the Chapter, Steven kept the spirit of the conference alive by focusing the Board on attracting and supporting volunteers to improve Chapter services in several areas. As a result, we have new volunteers who have started marketing groups, addressed intern concerns, reached out to new members, and advanced Chapter communications.

We now have a Tech Team for etree and website communications, an expanded newsletter staff and an improved newsletter. Under Steven’s leadership we offered a successful Law and Ethics workshop that helped put the Chapter on solid financial footing. As President, he has provided a stabilizing energy to the Chapter. His careful research and thoughtful response settled a controversial issue raised recently on our very active membership etree, and communicated clearly the respect he has for his fellow therapists.

We have been fortunate to have Steven as our President this year, and we are proud to introduce him as our Outstanding Chapter Leader of 2003.