“All you can take with you is that which you’ve given away.” - moto on the sign under Peter Bailey’s picture in the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life”

My good friends at SHARE (http://www.share.org) celebrated the 60th anniversary of that wonderful organization last week in Orlando. I enjoyed seeing their posts on Facebook and following along with some of the news from another excellent meeting of enterprise IT professionals. SHARE has been an important part of my professional career, I've written some about this here already and I’m sure I will write about my experiences there several times in the coming months.

Today, I’m thinking about the value of SHARE and volunteering there as a way to learn about management and leadership. The positive impact that my engagement there has had on my career, and my ability to succeed in increasingly responsible positions, cannot be overstated. I was fortunate that my first mentor in IT, Gary Sandwick, valued SHARE participation and encouraged me to attend and get involved. There is so much I owe to Gary. He trusted me, taught me, and gave me key opportunities. Of all his many gifts to me, his starting me down the path to a volunteer career at SHARE had the broadest impact on my future in IT.

I first attended SHARE in Anaheim in 1986 and found the broad, and deep, technical program there incredibly valuable. In one week, I could update my knowledge of the technologies I worked with, learn about new tools and concepts, and meet many other IT professionals with common interests. I came away from that first experience with the beginnings of a network that would serve me throughout the remainder of my career, with many new ideas I could apply back at the shop, and with a keen desire to get back to another SHARE conference as soon as possible.

I also had my first taste of volunteering for SHARE that week. One of the many things this organization excels at is giving people opportunities to get involved that allow them to feel welcome, to succeed at each level, and to prepare for greater engagement and contribution. For me, the beginning was to help with distributing and collecting session evaluation cards for the MVS Storage Project. At this point in my career, I was a Systems Programmer on IBM 370 mainframes and I found my first SHARE family in the MVSS Project.

Although I didn’t have a commitment to attend every SHARE meeting, I was offered the opportunity to be a project volunteer and work on analyzing the session evaluation data by working remotely when I couldn’t attend. In these days before email and the Internet, I’d receive the evaluation data in the mail and return my analysis in the same way. I was hooked and wanted to do more as soon as I could!

I served as a Project Volunteer for a number of years and the lessons I learned, and applied as I moved from banking into higher education, helped me secure a commitment to attend both SHARE conferences each year. My greater availability allowed me to serve as a Project Officer, and Deputy Project Manager with MVSS before being asked to serve as Project Manager for a new project. Recruiting volunteers and speakers, and participating in the logistics of scheduling and supporting the conference sessions, helped me gain skill and confidence in supervising people and managing projects. Applying what I learned to my work as a supervisor helped lead to my being asked to join the management team in our IT department.

Shortly after I first became a manager at the university, I was approached about running for election to the SHARE Board of Directors. I was surprised, and delighted, to be asked as I had great respect for the people working on the Board. From my first opportunity to work with the Board, as a nominee attending a board meeting, I felt welcome and included in the work of the group. Although I was not elected, I was appointed to serve as Director of Human Resources and the next phase of my SHARE volunteer experience began.  Each new role at SHARE provided me greater opportunities to learn and grow and my work with the SHARE Board was the most valuable of all. After my initial work in Human Resources, I served as Director of Strategic Relations and then as Secretary. Each of these roles helped me grow in ways that were valuable at my “day job” and the experience I gained working with policies as Secretary has been especially valuable.

I served as SHARE Treasurer and then as Vice President and Director of Strategic Development and the experience I gained working with budgets, investments, and strategic planning has proven very valuable to me in my work at the university. I had a number of other opportunities to chair and serve on various committees and each provided me the chance to learn and grow. Unfortunately, I was unable to continue my SHARE career by serving as President. I would have had that opportunity, but I lost support from my then Director at the university during a time of difficult budgets. I regret that I was unable to complete my service to SHARE, and to keep the commitment I had made to serve as their president.

Although I had to step away from my role on the Board, SHARE never stepped back from me. Instead my colleagues there stepped up to help me find new ways to remain engaged. I continued as a “virtual volunteer” for a number of years, helping to develop some new offerings, have attended SHARE’s ExecuForum event and continue to participate with their Archives committee. I also enjoy returning to SHARE conferences for a visit with my old friends there whenever I can.

They say that what you get out of your experiences, depends on what you put into them, I certainly found this to be true in my work with SHARE. The organization offers many wonderful volunteer opportunities, and the secret to making the most of these is to accept that offer and give your best while remaining open to learning and growing through the experience. I know there are other great volunteer opportunities with many fine professional organizations and I hope you will each find a way to engage in these.

I’ve often said that my involvement with SHARE has been the best experience in my professional life and I remain as certain of that today as I ever have been. The spirit of sharing that is fundamental to this great organization fosters an energy and openness that allows us to give, learn, and grow together that is beyond anything else I have found in our profession. During the most active phase of my engagement with SHARE, from 1988 to 2010, I learned things that have made all the difference in my ability to contribute to the university. Even more lasting are the friendships that started there. I have many dear friends that I stay close to across the miles and I met my best friend of more than ten years at SHARE. These friendships will enrich my life and bring me joy always.