Speakers Announced for NUCA’s Fall Leadership Conference

The NUCA Fall Leadership Conference in October will offer lots of opportunities to improve your company’s internal operations. The meeting, which will be held in historic Newport, R.I., will feature four modules from NUCA’s Institute for Leadership Development, including: Estimating and Bidding I and II — Instructor Charles Vander Kooi; Safety Management Fundamentals — Instructor George Kennedy, CSP;  and Construction Law: Bring It On! — Instructors Charles Surasky, Thomas Olson and Kevin McKeon.

Tim Tokarczyk, from the FMI Center for Strategic Leadership, will present a Succession Planning Seminar. Contractor roundtable discussions are also on the agenda. As a consultant with FMI, Tokarczyk is deeply involved in leadership training, organizational consulting and content development. He also serves as a facilitator at FMI’s Leadership Institute, a four-day program in which participants examine their unique leadership styles and learn how this style influences others. He specializes in leadership development, helping leaders improve their leadership and management skills to operate at their peak level of effectiveness.

The keynote speaker this year will be Commander Kirk Lippold, USN (Ret.), Commanding Officer of the USS Cole when it came under a suicide terrorist attack by Al Qaeda in the port of Aden, Yemen. During his command, he and his crew distinguished themselves by saving the American war ship from sinking. With this unique and invaluable experience, Commander Lippold has briefed more than 6,000 military officers, 2,000 federal and state law enforcement officers and given more than 300 presentations on this seminal event in the war on terrorism. 

Currently, Commander Lippold is the president of Lippold Strategies LLC, a consulting firm specializing in executive leadership development, strategic planning and training programs and crisis management. Additionally, he serves as Senior Vice President for military policy and strategic development at the public affairs firm Phillip Stutts & Co. He is also the author of Front Burner — Al Qaeda’s Attack on the USS Cole, which recounts the story of Al Qaeda’s bombing of his ship and the continuing ramifications for the war on terror.