Okanagan College instructor shares her passion for leadership

Okanagan College Media Release

When Carolyn Gibson first moved to Revelstoke in early 2014, she had no inkling that she would soon find an outlet for combining two of her biggest passions: teaching and leadership. Over the past three years, she has listened to and worked with the region’s business owners to develop and share strategies they need to support their teams and grow their businesses – a collaborative process she’ll continue this fall thanks to a unique and ever-changing course at the College.

Gibson is currently teaching the Leadership Essential Series, a five-part series consisting of one-day seminars focused on specific leadership skills required in today’s workplace.

It’s a course that continues to grow and develop with each semester, as Gibson continues to integrate the latest trends and challenges she encounters from her students, who range from CEOs to those entirely new to leadership.

“The series is ideal not only for seasoned workplace veterans, but also for those leaders looking to identify and develop new leadership skills,” says Gibson, who holds an MBA from Queen’s University and has a Certificate in Conflict Management from Conrad Grebel/University of Waterloo.

Gibson’s students benefit from her wealth of educational and practical experience, acquired over a 20-plus-year career in business, which has seen her start up her own business and consulting firm. She is also an advisor on the MBA program at Queen’s University.

“I love teaching in general as it’s so exciting to see people start to look at things differently,” says Gibson. “It’s great to watch them think about and apply different ways of handling a situation, different ways of looking at their jobs, different ways of communicating.”

Gibson’s path to Okanagan College was fortuitous.

A glance at an Okanagan College Continuing Studies brochure ultimately led her to becoming an Instructor for the College. In the brochure she saw an ad indicating Okanagan College would be open to discussions from professionals in the community regarding potential new course offerings. The rest is history as she celebrates three years and counting as a College instructor, sharing her love for leadership across the College’s campuses from Revelstoke to Penticton.

As a business owner herself, Gibson is quick to point out the value of creating a solid foundation of leadership skills and constantly building on that foundation as trends change – a point echoed by one of her students.

David Murray, Corporate Safety and Environment Manager at Gorman Group, also has the role of coordinating leadership training for his company with Okanagan College and Gibson.

“I can say that Carolyn has been exactly what we were looking for and needed to have regarding an outside trainer for our company,” says Murray. “In order for our management team’s education in leadership essentials to be effective, the instructor not only needs to have expertise in current business and performance management theories and tools, but also needs to be able to tailor the delivery with the challenges that our group faces, and content specific to our high-value wood products manufacturing business. Carolyn and the Okanagan College team did this competently and with the necessary flexibility to our needs.”

The Leadership Essentials Series is just one of the hundreds of Continuing Studies courses and certificates that is offered at Okanagan College campuses. To find out more about the series, or to discover a new career path, check out Okanagan College’s newly released fall 2017 Continuing Studies Brochure. www.okanagan.bc.ca/cs