The 2008 Henning Award for Outstanding Contribution to Public Management

By Kay Nidiffer Rogers, CPM
2008 Henning Committee Chair
knrogers@sc.rr.com

Receiving national recognition from your peers for career, organizational and community service is a treasured honor. The Academy’s Henning Award for Outstanding Contribution to Public Management is one such special recognition. The Henning is our most prestigious award and recognizes career accomplishment, leadership and service to the Academy, Society and community. I hope each one of our member Societies is working on a nomination for someone deserving of this award.

The 19th recipient of the Henning Award will be presented with the beautiful Henning Trophy bowl at the September 2008 AACPM Professional Development Conference in Columbus, Ohio. The venue will be the Annual Awards Banquet, an eagerly anticipated event that is enjoyed as an evening of celebration and fellowship.

The Henning Award was inaugurated by the Academy in the late 1980’s and subsequently named in honor of Kenneth K. Henning, one of our Academy heroes and a person to whom we all owe a great debt. His dedication and belief in improving public service remains a legacy that the Academy is proud to honor annually with the presentation of the Henning Award.

Nominees for the award are recommended by their peers because they have made a difference in their Society, the Academy and community. All 18 Henning recipients have known and respected Ken Henning. Unfortunately, there may be some members today who do not know him. To tell you about this national honor and its importance, I asked several recipients to talk about Ken and the meaning of the award to them. Here are a few excerpts from their comments.

Nancy Dewitt was the first Henning recipient in 1989-90 and describes being with Ken Henning as “...inspiring and exciting because he emanated energy and enthusiasm every second. He taught me that nothing is impossible; we are limited by our ideas and willingness to test the waters of new and unknown places.” She goes on, “…winning an accolade with Ken Henning’s name on it was something I thought to be the greatest honor. In those days, we did not have a form or format for the nomination and didn’t inform the winner until the banquet. I was nearly speechless when they called my name -- to be recognized by your peers is one of the most moving things that can happen.”

Bobby Ann Clark was the third recipient and echoes Nancy’s sentiments when she says that she was “completely dumbfounded” when she received a call announcing that she had received the Henning. She didn’t even know she had been nominated. She explains that the experience of having met, learned with and worked with Certified Public Managers® continues to be a very meaningful part of her life, and the Henning Trophy has always been in a prominent place in her home.

Patricia (Tish) Hagler received the award in 1998 and also speaks about the specialness of the award because she was selected from an elite group of individuals. “Every member of AACPM is a star because of his/her training, competence and professionalism… to be selected as a superstar among stars was unbelievable; it was the highlight of my career.”

Haywood Poole was honored in 2000 and also tells us that being nationally recognized for his professional and community service contributions has been the highlight of his career. He prominently displays the trophy bowl in his office and uses it “as a catalyst to promote the Certified Public Manager® Program, my Society and the Academy.”

Tom Patterson speaks with pride and humility about being honored in 2003. During 2001- 03, he worked with Ken Henning and others in compiling the CPM history and writing about Ken and our other heroes who had the vision, planned the expansion and created the Academy and Consortium organizations. He says he recognized through that process that “everything I might have done was done in the shadow of others who had paved the way for me to even be there.”

Larry Totten received the Henning in 2004 and spoke for us all when talking about his own many activities, “… all of these activities are important to the growth of our Societies and the Academy, but also, and more importantly, to the increased credibility of the certification to which each of us has devoted so much of our time to earn. We have a long way to go before the term “CPM” becomes synonymous with “government professional.” It is only through our active participation in the process that we have a chance in making this happen.”

Ed Burt was honored in 2006 and has strong feelings about how the CPM program, involvements with his Society and Academy service enriched his life, professionally and personally. “I felt great satisfaction that I had joined a unique fraternity of special friends, and the award was confirmation that my service was valued and appreciated.”

In preparing this article, I was reminded about the times, especially in the early years, when Ken Henning met informally with the founding members of the Academy and the Consortium. There are many fond recollections about how “…he would ask the question or make the statement that challenged us to dare to dream of the next step and the step after that for the organization.”

Ken Henning’s enduring quality of leadership is what we seek to celebrate through the Henning Award. The 2008 Henning Committee looks forward to receiving your nominations, and the Academy’s Henning recipients look forward to welcoming into our midst the 2008 Henning Award recipient. All nominations must be postmarked by Friday, June 20, 2008. If you have questions, please contact me. I look forward to seeing you in September!

© Copyright 2008, American Association of Certified Public Managers®