Where the Professional Meets the Development: Matt Oyer, NASPO Chief Learning Officer.

We're talking with Matt Oyer, the acting Chief Learning Officer for NASPO.  We discuss his roles and responsibilities at NASPO. He shares his thoughts on the importance of professional development in an association, Procurement U's recent IACET accreditation, the new Pro U Gives Back program, and future projects that we can look forward to.

Click here to view a transcript of this episode.

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Transcript

Amanda Valdivieso: 0:06

Greetings and thanks for tuning in to the NASPO Pulse podcast, where we are monitoring issues in states procurement. We've got our finger on the pulse. I'm your host, amanda Valdivieso.

Kevin Minor: 0:17

And I'm Kevin Miner.

Amanda Valdivieso: 0:19

And on today's episode of the Pulse, we are talking with Matt Oyer, the Acting Chief Learning Officer for NASFO and a gentleman we both have had the pleasure of working with before. Isn't that right, Kevin?

Kevin Minor: 0:30

Yes, that's correct, and I have known Matt Oyer for a couple of years now and it has been a pleasure to work with him.

Amanda Valdivieso: 0:41

And a privilege, I'm sure.

Kevin Minor: 0:43

I don't know about both. I don't want to give him too much credit. I don't want to make his head bigger than it already is, you know.

Amanda Valdivieso: 0:50

Yes, exactly. But yes, it is fun to work with Matt. I've had the pleasure of working with him as well, not only because I'm in the same team as he is but also just because he has a lot of knowledge that you can gain yeah, yeah, but he is.

Kevin Minor: 1:06

I think he's um a, uh, a cincinnati fan, so that's one thing that we try not to hold against him. Yeah, I think he's a browns fan that's right and if he's not, well, you are now matt because it's uh, it's too late to go back and change the recording.

Amanda Valdivieso: 1:20

Aren't the browns Cleveland?

Kevin Minor: 1:22

Yeah, oh yeah, man, I love sports so much.

Amanda Valdivieso: 1:28

And I don't care for them at all, Kevin.

Kevin Minor: 1:32

Well then, it's a really good thing that I brought it up.

Amanda Valdivieso: 1:35

Yeah, I'm glad you did, Very glad, but yeah. So while we both know a lot about Matt, our listeners may not. So today we are diving into his background and his roles and responsibilities at NASPO.

Kevin Minor: 1:48

Yeah, we're also going to hear some of his thoughts on the importance of professional development in an association, specifically our association, the recent IASET accreditation that Procurement U just attained, the new Pro U Gives Back program that's going to be really exciting and some of the future projects that the professional development team is working on.

Amanda Valdivieso: 2:11

It sure does sound like we have a lot to cover. So we better get rolling. Email us with your questions and comments at podcast at naspoorg, if you haven't already. Make sure you subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, spotify, google, and make sure to check out the NASPO blog pulsenaspoorg and catch up on some procurement articles written by your very own NASPO staff. Let's take the pulse. So, matt, thank you so much for joining Kevin and I today on the NASPO Pulse.

Matt Oyer: 2:40

Well, thank you for having me. It's good to be on the Pulse. Obviously, I've been listening for a long time and I was honored that you and Kevin decided to let me come on here.

Kevin Minor: 2:50

He's been listening for a long time. He has no choice. He has to review these.

Amanda Valdivieso: 2:54

Really, every time we put it out.

Matt Oyer: 2:58

Did you have to?

Kevin Minor: 2:59

say that I mean you know, the people want to know.

Amanda Valdivieso: 3:03

They do. They need to know the truth right.

Kevin Minor: 3:04

They need to know who lets this come out. Who to blame.

Amanda Valdivieso: 3:08

Exactly, and that's just one of your responsibilities, matt. So, as the acting chief learning officer for NASPO, tell us what led you. How did you get to this role? How did you become the acting chief learning officer? And, besides making sure that Kevin and I do this podcast correctly every time, what other responsibilities do you have?

Matt Oyer: 3:27

Yeah, so my background is in government public administration, worked for a couple of different associations before I came to NASPO, worked in Georgia for a while with local governments, working with them on community development and different things construction projects, public works projects and that's where you know I worked with a lot of local governments and kind of got you know, just a taste for that work and really enjoyed it.

Matt Oyer: 3:51

And first exposure to procurement didn't really know what procurement was yet but kind of began to learn about it did some public bids and worked on some construction projects and grant management things like that. And then moved up to Cincinnati, worked for another association there with local governments doing some similar things too. Again, procurement was kind of part of that, first exposure to cooperative procurement in particular. And then decided to move back to Kentucky and ended up with NASPO and I actually I started off on the research team as a policy analyst working on the research side and then ProcurementU. Procurementu that you know now is a big ongoing initiative, for NASPO was just this little idea that was starting at the time and you know I kind of hopped on that team after a year at the research team and then moved up through different positions working with Procurement U and then now, in the acting chief learning officer role, getting to work with all the different departments that fall under professional development.

Amanda Valdivieso: 4:52

You've been all over the place then, Matt, haven't you Not just?

Kevin Minor: 4:55

here in Nashville, but also just professionally.

Amanda Valdivieso: 4:58

You've been to Georgia, Cincinnati A lot of experience.

Matt Oyer: 5:02

No, and association work is what I like, you know, I I didn't, I'll be honest, I didn't even know I was. I was working in an association until I was, you know, kind of in it. And, uh, I think most of us, you know, we, we didn't know exactly what association work was. You know what what all fell under that category. But, um, no, I decided it was for me and it's been good. So I've been with NASPO six and a half years now, roughly. Yeah, different roles and everything. So in this role, you know, I get to work with all the different professional development departments. So we have our research and innovation team, we have procurement U that I mentioned, our academic affairs initiatives, where we work with higher education institutions, where we work with higher education institutions, and then we also create the sessions and the programming for all the NASPO conferences, working with our conference and events team. So there's a lot on the professional development side. But, yeah, that's NASPO's big focus and initiative in providing those out to the membership.

Kevin Minor: 6:00

What do you so real quick? You said that you liked association work. What do you like so much? What do you so real quick? You said that you liked association work. What do you like so much? What do you love about associations?

Matt Oyer: 6:07

Yeah, so you know, I've focused on government associations, right, there's associations for everything, everything you can imagine, like every career possible, there's an association for it. But my background being in government, I kind of latched onto the government association side of it. And you know, I think, what I enjoy cause I worked, you know, I was an intern for a city at one point. You know, directly as an intern, you know, and I've I've worked with local governments, I've worked with states.

Matt Oyer: 6:34

What I like about association work is you get to work with just so many different governments, right, so many different offer offices, so many different entities and you get to support them in the work they do. So it's, you know, especially with NASPA, we're doing it at a national level. So you get to provide resources and do research and all these things that impact the work that government officials do, and get to support them on it. It's, it's always interesting. There's always a challenge. There's always, you know, something that comes up, never dull moment. Um, always just another challenge, which is what I love. Um, I don't want to get complacent, I don't want to get bored. I like having that challenge side of it.

Kevin Minor: 7:15

Yeah, yeah, there's definitely always something, especially this past year, huh.

Matt Oyer: 7:18

Yes, always a new challenge to experience Well, and you know the people are okay too. I guess you know the people I work with. They're all right.

Kevin Minor: 7:26

Most of them most of them are okay.

Amanda Valdivieso: 7:27

Most of them.

Kevin Minor: 7:29

So, as acting chief learning officer, like you said, you oversee professional development and that's a huge part of the association. You mentioned some of your other responsibilities and we'll talk about that later, but what does the professional development piece look like about that?

Matt Oyer: 7:44

later. But what does the professional development piece look like? Yeah, so you know, for for NASPO, I mean, professional development is is really one of our biggest focuses, right? Because for NASPO, you know, we are elevating the public procurement profession and and professional development in a broad sense is obviously a huge part of that. So you know, with the different departments, I have um underneath professional development, the work we do, we're trying to meet the needs of the membership and public procurement professionals outside of just state central procurement offices research surveys, short, you know, toolkits, publications, things that they can use on a day-to-day basis, as well as the more formal, you know, training and courses in education.

Matt Oyer: 8:32

So I think what we have tried to do over the last few years in particular is, you know, we have these different departments, but we want them to all work together. We want there to be, you know, overlap and consistency among the projects they're doing. They may be hitting on the topic of professional development in a different way, but there's always some opportunity for collaboration among the different teams and, again, all focused on the same goal putting resources and things out to the membership.

Amanda Valdivieso: 9:01

I can definitely speak to that, Matt. As a member of the Procurement U team, I have helped the R&I team and I've also helped academic affairs with doing some career fairs. So I've got to, you know, be all in all areas. So it's really awesome that we get to do that.

Matt Oyer: 9:14

Yeah, and you know that's. I mean that's also part of the fun. Right Of being on the professional development side is is you get to work in a lot of different areas. I mean we don't, we don't put the teams in their own little silo and then say they can't talk to each other. Right, research flows in Procurement U. Procurement U works with higher ed. You know it. All kind of flows together and you know the intent is that we're able to put out great resources and connect with our members in different areas.

Kevin Minor: 9:40

You know, one thing that I always really thought was cool about the professional development side was you're on the cutting edge of a lot of these things that are going on. For us, it's procurement within our association. You're on the cutting edge. You get to experience what is going on right now in the field and you get to talk to experts about the up-to-date now topics. What's going on right now?

Matt Oyer: 10:04

Yeah, and I think you know, think that's part of our role and I'd say especially on the research side. But again, I mean it flows into everything is really interacting with our membership. And I would even go beyond that. I mean interacting and learning from other associations, strategic partners, just the literature and the research that's being done broadly and trying to draw the connections to our membership and trying to put out resources and to them and distill it down into what they can use on a day-to-day basis. But also looking at you know what's coming. I mean, what's the next big thing, what's going to impact them? You know what, what may they? You know where are they not aware of right now, but it could be on their desk in a year or two years or whatever it may be. So that's part of really, you know, the research and innovation team's role of trying to see what's coming but also meeting the needs right now, what they need to have and what they need us to support them on.

Kevin Minor: 11:03

So, with ProcurementU, how much of what's going on right now affects what you're planning as opposed to what you already have slated to develop in course, in courses for the year?

Matt Oyer: 11:17

there's always this um, this balance of of trying to um, meet the needs of right now. Right, you know, like the emerging topic that comes up, the whatever it is that that is hitting the members or the profession at the moment, while also trying to hit on, you know, the larger topics that we know aren't going away, like, you know the core, you know the larger topics that we know aren't going away. You know the core procurement topics, the core courses that are needed, and so we try to have that kind of balance of things. Yeah, I mean, the great example is, of course, you know, with the response to the pandemic last year. You know, for our members and I think for everyone, I mean there were immediate things that needed to be done. There was work that needed to be done.

Matt Oyer: 11:59

Everyone was working in a different environment. So, you know, on our team and just generally with NASPO, priorities changed in terms of some of the resources we were putting out. We were doing different types of support for our members, you know, helping them sort through things, market research tools, things like that. We changed a lot of our priorities and we kept the other courses going and the other work that we were already doing. So I think part of association work again just going back to it generally is trying to always be responsive to the members and their needs are going to change. But then there's also those bigger projects or there's ongoing projects that are still of importance and you just got to find ways to balance them and stay responsive.

Amanda Valdivieso: 12:46

Yeah, and speaking of big projects, one of the ongoing things that we've been working on, especially with procurement you, has been the I-set accreditation, because that had to keep going, even throughout the pandemic. So talk to us about that. I'm sure some of our listeners may not know what that exactly means to be ISED accredited, so tell us a little bit about that, matt.

Matt Oyer: 13:05

Yeah, so ISED is the International Association for Continuing Education and Training. It has been a big initiative for a couple of years now. You know ISED's focus is on being able to accredit professional development organizations and being able to credit them so they can provide continuing education units that are accredited by ISET. So for us, you know, the focus of this was being able to go through this process and become an accredited provider to be able to offer CEUs through Procurement U and for our online courses. And for us you know part of it, of this process it's a very rigorous you know process, amanda, as you know, because you own it too.

Matt Oyer: 13:49

You know there's a lot of things you have to document, a lot of things you have to bring up to the standards of ISF and for us, I mean I think it was a great process generally to go through because it forced us.

Matt Oyer: 14:02

You know, as I said earlier, I mean ProcureMU is still relatively young about five years we've been putting out courses.

Matt Oyer: 14:09

It had us go through and analyze all of our processes, our policies. You know everything we had been doing and document them and also think about could we be more efficient, could we bring this up to a higher standard, could we do things a little bit differently? So I think internally it was a great process to go through and you know the end result was the honor of being accredited by ISET and now being able to offer CEUs for our courses. And so the way it works is, now that we're a credit provider, we can roll out courses that meet the IASET standards and offer CUs for them. So it's going to be an ongoing project for us throughout this year and just into the future of making sure our courses are up to that standard and putting them out so that CUs are available for them and for folks that are interested. So it'll keep going. You know we'll have requirements to continue to meet ISET standards but we're excited to you know, to be done with it honestly and to have it accomplished.

Matt Oyer: 15:09

I think you know we can say that it's a lot of work. I mean it's certainly worth it, but excited to have it completed and now move in the next phase of maintaining that accreditation and keeping up the high standard of courses for it.

Matt Oyer: 15:24

And I think it's important for our members too to see that our courses meet that higher level of standards now, and I think that even those who aren't members, who do take our courses, yeah, and I think it just demonstrates again and we've touched on it but the commitment of NASPO to professional development, um, to put the time into, to trying to be accredited and to meet that standard, um, and, and it was, I think, a logical next step for our, for her program, um, for procurement, union and where we're at. And so now we'll just keep that standard going, um, going, and keep developing new courses and resources.

Kevin Minor: 16:00

Matt, what does maintenance look like for ISA?

Matt Oyer: 16:03

Yeah. So ISA has standards that you have to meet for every course that you're going to put out, that you're going to offer CEUs for continuing education units. So every course that we do, we have a certain process we have to follow. You know there's different things at every step within that process that you have to meet, that you have to document Everything from the start, with the initial outline and just what the course is going to be all the way to after it's launched and out there for people to take. So we have to, you know, meet that standard and we have our internal process for different things and we'll just keep that going. And then you know, every year we send in a, an annual report to ISF that documents everything we're doing and, and you know, certifies that we're we're continuing to do it.

Kevin Minor: 16:51

So it's an annual update? Yeah, so it's always pretty fresh.

Matt Oyer: 16:55

Yeah, and then there's a five year reaccreditation process too that we'll go through.

Kevin Minor: 17:03

So the fun is going to keep going Well, one thing at a time. Let's bask in this glory for a moment.

Matt Oyer: 17:08

Take a victory lap for a minute. Yeah.

Kevin Minor: 17:11

If that's possible, let's do that. So, Matt, let's talk a bit about NASPO's professional development team response in regard to the pandemic. How has this past year changed for state procurement offices in terms of professional development and how is NASPO responding to those changes?

Matt Oyer: 17:30

Yeah. So I think that's a great question and I I mean, I think this is one of those, those topics that we're just going to be monitoring because I don't think we've seen the full impact of it completely right and we'll see, kind of, how things go. But I, you know, if you go back to the pandemic and you think about what our members, what procurement officers, were doing, you know, and the response that they had and all the different things they were procuring and the environment they were working in, you know, I think professional development took a backseat for a while, right, with everything they had going on. I think it had to, and you know they were focused on the immediate needs and we were supporting them on a lot of different things. I think, you know, for training for them within their offices and for their states. For training for them within their offices and for their states, there was the need to take those live trainings that many of them were doing and take them online. For state training programs you know a lot of them had live instruction workshops. They were doing trainings attached to state certification programs. Most of them were live in person. Now, I mean, some states do have LMSs, some states do have online components. Some of them are doing hybrid, but a lot of them are still doing live instruction and, of course, that wasn't an option within the pandemic.

Matt Oyer: 18:52

So you know, I think, what we heard from a lot of the trainers we talked to and I've talked to throughout the year and we engage with the trainers for the procurement offices in a lot of different ways. We have a professional development committee made up of a lot of trainers. We talk to them all on a regular basis and a lot of them were really looking to figure out ways to take those live trainings and convert them to online in different ways, and you know the tools that were available. The technology that they had within their office or were able to purchase it varied right. For some of them, you know it meant doing webinars, you know doing video calls and having a group and trying to make that work. Others had the ability to create online courses. Some of them had an LMS or were able to get one in the last year or utilize one that was already within the state. So they all had to find different ways to take those courses and still offer them Because, again, the training needs are still there. Many of them have certification programs and they needed to be able to certify procurement officers and to train new folks coming on. So they found different ways to do that and they found ways to innovate, honestly. I mean they found ways to take those live instruction courses and make them engaging and make them work online and find ways to do assessments, to do exams, things like that, in an online environment.

Matt Oyer: 20:22

We supported in different ways however we could. We did some webinars, did some resources about online learning and engaging folks online and tried to support them. Now for Procurement U Procurement U courses we've been online from the start. I mean, that's been our focus Self-paced online courses. That's the route we went when ProcurementU was developed years ago. We've done some live offerings, but the majority has been online. I think the flexibility was nice for them and I think that's a trend we're going to continue to see, and it's not just specific to procurement or procurement professional development. But that ability to meet the flexibility and the needs of the learner is going to continue, and so that's something we're obviously monitoring and thinking about how we stay flexible and offer different learning opportunities for different folks, right. So I think we'll keep looking at meeting those different areas and those different needs of learners and how we can provide offerings for all different groups on different topics. One other thing you know that I found very interesting in talking to trainers and I think this is also kind of going towards in the direction that professional development and learning and the way it's changing is is they got they, you know, they got creative in some of the ways they were doing learning Right.

Matt Oyer: 21:50

When we think of, when we think about learning most people think of, you know, formal learning, what we would call formal learning right, but there's also informal learning and informal learning, you know, I think, is growing and it can be done in many different ways.

Matt Oyer: 22:04

And I heard from trainers, from CPOs they were, you know, looking to both meet some of these training needs, right, but also engage their staff virtually, find ways to do it.

Matt Oyer: 22:18

So I've heard from CPOs who did, you know, jeopardy on a webinar, right, or on a just a chat call with their folks just for lunch.

Matt Oyer: 22:29

So that more informal, you know, peer to peer, finding ways to learn. That you know some people, some people love it, some people may want the more formal, but either way, I think a lot of folks realize that, that especially when everyone was working remotely. There was a need for that connection and learning can help with that. You know, learning is a way to to kind of meet both needs, you know, give people an opportunity to engage but also learn about procurement or other topics. So that was something that was really interesting and I think it also kind of informs some of the things we are looking at may do in the future Just opening up what is learning, you know, and opening up the playbook a little bit more in terms of what we do around it, and looking at ways to do micro learnings and videos and just different types of engagement, especially as we are limited in terms of being able to meet in person.

Kevin Minor: 23:23

Well, matt, I you know I find it interesting. I find it interesting that you say professional development took a backseat last year, and I think I understand what you you mean by that. But did it take a backseat or did it? Did it transform? And what changes do you see becoming more permanent fixtures?

Matt Oyer: 23:40

I mean, I think it changed right.

Matt Oyer: 23:41

I mean I think you know, I think there's always a commitment to professional development within our membership. I know our members care about it, they care about professional certifications, they care about the trainings they offer to their members. Obviously, there were there were other priorities and other big things, but it continued right and it continued in different ways and I think we talked a little bit about some of the different ways that they changed professional development and what it was. But you know, it continues now and I think folks are continuing to look for the different professional development opportunities that are out there, whether it is a certification they want to pursue or it's just hopping on a webinar and learning about a new topic. And again, I think a lot of it. It does go back to technology and being in the remote environment, the online environment of trying to find other ways to learn environment of trying to find other ways to learn, and I think there's definitely a commitment from the membership and the procurement profession to find other ways to achieve professional development goals and to learn.

Kevin Minor: 24:49

What do you see that looking like in the next I don't know five years? Give me a five and ten years.

Matt Oyer: 24:58

I think it's always going to be a mixture, like we were talking about, of the more formal learning, the certifications, the formal courses. Informal learning is another area of growth and just the ability to be able to get that 15 minutes of learning that you may need around a topic right. You know there's a lot of discussion about kind of the. If you need to learn how to fix something, what do you do? You probably go to YouTube or you Google it, right, and you get a video you do?

Matt Oyer: 25:31

Yeah, and it tells you exactly how to do what you're looking for, and I think there's merit to that.

Matt Oyer: 25:37

That's not to say that you shouldn't understand the full theory or the full understanding of a topic or really dive into it yeah, but in many cases you wanna know how to do the thing that's on your plate today and I think, as learning professionals, you know, especially supporting, you know, professionals within public procurement. We have to meet both sides of that. We have to provide them tangible things that they can utilize on a day-to-day basis for the topics and the issues that they're dealing with. And we also have to give them the wider view and we also have to give them the deep dive on topics because, as both of you know, I mean, there are very complicated topics within public procurement and you're not going to cover those in a five minute video in the detail that may be needed. So you have to take different approaches for different topics, for different learners, and so it's you know it's more of everything, I guess, but it's also, again, the ability to find innovative ways to do that.

Amanda Valdivieso: 26:43

Now, speaking of developing in the future, what do folks have to look forward to with the NASPO professional development lineup? What's coming out, or what has already come out that they may not be aware of?

Matt Oyer: 26:54

Yeah, so we we've got several courses we're working on right now. We just put out an ethical strategies course not too long ago. We've got some courses around a bunch of different topics that I know are of interest to our members and to the profession. So we've got a few like negotiations. We're going to have a higher level course on it to build off of our introduction negotiations course. We're working on a course related to sustainable procurement. We also have, you know, a few other topics talent management, that we're working on, data analytics so a lot of these, these big topics that we're continuing to try to put out resources around and we're also looking at potential put out resources around and we're also looking at potential other instructor-led courses we can do in the future too. Again, going back to providing a bunch of different options, you know we're looking at those as well and developing them. So there's going to be other courses and other resources, you know, coming out through Procurement U and then on the research side and, just, you know, generally with the professional development teams, we're constantly putting out white papers and resources on the website, of course, the Procurement Pulse blog and webinars Webinars you know, last year, in 2020, we did more webinars than I think NASCO has ever done and I think everybody you know everyone would probably agree they did more webinars than they've ever participated in, but we put out more than we ever have.

Matt Oyer: 28:16

You know, our webinars are always free. We're always trying to push them out to anybody, not just members. So we love to have folks get on there and we try to hit on, you know, hot topics at the time, emerging topics and lots of different things that we try to put in front of the participants and have some feedback, and so we've got different things that we try to put in front of the participants and have some feedback, and so we've got some more that we're planning right now. So, just again, going back to the whole, having lots of different options, we're trying to meet those different needs.

Amanda Valdivieso: 28:44

That's excellent. Now we mentioned the new courses, but we currently have a promotion going on right now for some of our foundational courses that are are in the procurement u lms. Can you talk about that promotion?

Kevin Minor: 28:56

yeah, man, I think a lot of our listeners want to know what this? What all this business is about procurement you giving back. What exactly does that mean?

Matt Oyer: 29:04

yeah, so it means free, free, free, free free.

Kevin Minor: 29:09

I don't think the people in the back heard you say that one more time oh, I Free.

Matt Oyer: 29:13

Um, free courses and as simple as it sounds, right.

Matt Oyer: 29:17

So we took our foundational courses, our introduction level courses, and, uh, we are putting those out there for free to anyone and and we mean anyone, you know, you don't have to be an ASPA member.

Matt Oyer: 29:29

Um, we want everyone to be able to take them, and so this was, you know, conversations with our leadership and conversations with our team, just as we've been talking about. We know it's been a difficult year for you know, procurement professionals, and we wanted to be able to provide something that allowed them to get that professional development they needed and just be able to learn around these topics. So this was the way to do it, and so those courses are out there. You can visit our website. All you have to do, you know, you can go to the Procurement ULMS and create an account if you don't already have one. Once you get in there, you'll see the free courses that are available and you can just pick them and you can complete them anytime. The promotion runs until July 1st, so sign up now, but, again, you can wait a year and take those courses and finish them.

Kevin Minor: 30:19

Just sign up now so they're free. Yeah, you can have them and take them later. And I mean, if I'm not a NASPO member, why is that important? Who else would be looking to take these?

Matt Oyer: 30:31

Anyone that wants to learn about procurement. They're foundational introduction courses. But even for someone who's who's been in procurement, you know, for a decade, it doesn't hurt to go back and and have a refresher. But also to you know, possibly learn activities, examples in all of our courses to make them, you know, have that interactive learning but also lots of links and examples that you can utilize as well. And then you know. Another big interest for a lot of people is to get contact hours for state certification programs, national certification such as UPPCC. So for each course you complete, you get contact hours for it. In total we have 25 contact hours available through these free courses. So that's another great incentive. If you're looking to get certified at some point or for recertification purposes, take our course. You get a certificate at the end of it for the contact hours for that course. Our course, you get a certificate at the end of it for the contact hours for that course.

Kevin Minor: 31:38

And there you go, and again it's free.

Matt Oyer: 31:40

So before we go, do you have any advice for our listeners? Take all of our free courses.

Amanda Valdivieso: 31:45

No, that does not count, something other than that.

Kevin Minor: 31:49

That is good. That is good advice. But come on, you've had a lot of experience in associations and, just in your time, in leadership positions, so what's some good advice for our listeners?

Matt Oyer: 32:15

think, especially as a, as a supervisor and managing a team. You know, I one thing I always try to do is to be open-minded. I, I want, I want new ideas, I want thoughts from my team, and they are great at coming up with things and and and then we brainstorm and we think through them. So always be open. Don't ever be set on on what is, you know, normal or status quo. You know, be innovative within it. And I think, um, you know, I think the last year again it's, it's forced a lot of that, and you know to be innovative. So that would be my advice and um, go outside, get some fresh air, because it's finally getting warm. I think we could all use a walk or, you know, some gardening or whatever. You do, go and do it?

Kevin Minor: 32:49

Turn the screens off for a minute.

Matt Oyer: 32:51

Yeah.

Amanda Valdivieso: 32:51

Listen to this podcast outside.

Kevin Minor: 32:55

That's good advice too, while you're walking around the park. There you go.

Amanda Valdivieso: 32:57

Yes, there you go.

Kevin Minor: 32:58

Well, matt, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate it. All right, thank you both.

Amanda Valdivieso: 33:04

You know, even though I've lived through the changes in professional development, it's still really interesting to hear it through Matt's point of view.

Kevin Minor: 33:11

Yeah, I agree, especially when talking about the need for not only the formal learning that we are also accustomed to, right but also the informal learning that needs to take place and during the pandemic, using both techniques in person and remote, can help bridge, you know, any learning gaps.

Amanda Valdivieso: 33:31

Yes, I agree. And in terms of formal learning, let's just sit for a moment and take in the fact that ProcurementU is offering all of those free foundational courses this year.

Kevin Minor: 33:40

I know, I know that's wild, really it is. The promotion really is a great way to give back to procurement offices who haven't really been able to factor in time or money for training because of you know everything that's going on.

Amanda Valdivieso: 33:55

Yeah, exactly, and I really do hope that some of our procurement officials and their staff take advantage of the special offer that Procurement U is doing as well.

Kevin Minor: 34:02

Yeah, you know, I guess he is a good leader.

Amanda Valdivieso: 34:04

After all. Yes, we have to give him some props. So if you haven't already, make sure you subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, and make sure to check out the NASPO blog, pulsenaspoorg, and catch up on some procurement articles written by your very own NASPO staff.

Kevin Minor: 34:22

You still haven't perfected your sign-off, have you?

Amanda Valdivieso: 34:24

No.

Kevin Minor: 34:25

Hmm, until next time.

Amanda Valdivieso: 34:27

Okay, okay, I'll do that. Should I say that?

Kevin Minor: 34:29

I don't know, I was just rolling, rolling with it. I think we could probably just cut it. Thank you.