By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com

A special edition of Supervisor Bootcamp has certainly “sparked” the interest of many businesses in the area.

Summer SPARK (Supervisors Promoting Awareness, Responsibility, and Knowledge) held its first session Thursday at the Bucyrus Public Library. The session featured Ryan Morley, a shareholder at the Cleveland office of Jackson Lewis P.C., and focused on employment law for organizations. Morley discussed topics ranging from the recruitment process and workplace investigations to harassment and social media.

“This is the first season that we’ve done this,” said Doug Leuthold. “This is our first class today and our goal is to create a series of individualized seminars to help elevate our basic understanding and the issues that are confronting management and business. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in the public or private entity – if you’re a supervisor of some sort, there’s lots of things to be learned.”

The meeting room in the lower level of the Bucyrus Public Library was packed with representatives from all kinds of businesses. Over 50 people attended the course.

“I’m really pleased with the engagement of the people in the course as it relates to asking questions,” Leuthold said. “That’s what this is intended to be is not a one-way communication but a two-way communication in terms of asking questions, concerns, any point of law area. It’s a complicated topic. There’s a lot of gray area so this is a good chance for people to speak up and raise their questions.

“Also, it communicates to others that they’re struggling with the same issue. Sometimes you feel like you’re the sole person out there struggling with this issue and you find out that everyone else is too. So it’s a great learning opportunity.”

Linda Kaple with Frontier Communications found the program to be very beneficial.

“I think it’s really, really good. There’s a lot of informative information that, you know, I can take back and use,” Kaple said. “They gave us flyers on the next upcoming ones and the sessions sound very interesting as well so I’ll probably try to get back to one of those.”

The next two classes have been scheduled for July 15 and Aug. 1. Each series will be on a different topic.

“I encourage everybody to keep their eyes open and their ears open and look for the announcements that will be coming out on those shortly,” Leuthold said. “They’re going to be very exciting sessions also.”

Leuthold noted that they knew there would be scheduling conflicts on the first go-round with the SPARK program but, after exceeding their class size expectations for Thursday’s seminar, he said they are excited about what the number of attendants will be for the next two classes.

“I think maybe raise our sights and shoot for 60 or more (people) in attendance next time and it should be pretty exciting,” Leuthold said. “It’s a real pleasant surprise of the diversity of the individuals in the group and the diversity of the organizations represented. It’s a good chance for sharing cross-communications on different issues. I’m really pleased to see it.”

To find out more about the SPARK program visit www.crawford2020.com or contact Michelle Failor at 419-563-1809.