There is no question that we are learning daily as we reach for technology platforms to conduct distance meetings and teach the millions of students who would normally be in classrooms. We are all learning through trial and error that each platform has different levels of security, architecture and ease in usage.

When we find ourselves in crisis the speed of reactive decisions is often staggering. With the current public health crisis, we experience daily results of a technology laboratory fully open for business. The technology you select for a meeting with people you know well may be different than a platform you select for people you have never met before. Many of you already use different platforms for different groups in your communities.

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Public Service Appreciation Week! was established in 1985 and is in its thirty-sixth year. During these worldwide public health and financial crises, we are witnessing the testing of public leadership and public service as we have never seen before. The Public Leadership competencies needed to effectively address daily decisions during this crisis have become the essence of our personal sense of well-being and trust in governance systems. There could be no better time than May of 2020 to celebrate and thank our public servants who are on the front lines working to keep us safe.

This crisis has also exposed the critical interdependencies between public leaders and their citizens, public leaders in different levels of governance systems (local, state, federal), leaders in different countries, and finally leaders in different sectors (private, public and nonprofit). These relationships have become transparent as never before. Our hope is that these interdependencies will result in strengthened partnerships, and greater invests in hiring and developing highly skilled public leaders who can meet the challenges today, tomorrow and in the future.

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This April we celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the first Earth Day. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin believed that we all share one earth, so we need to take care of it. He was disturbed that an issue as important as the health of our planet was not addressed in politics or by the media, so he created the first Earth Day, on April 22, 1970. 20 million people nationwide attended festivities that day. It was a truly astonishing grassroots explosion, leading eventually to national legislation such as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, The Toxics Control Act, Clean Water Drinking Act, Insecticide, Fungicide & Rodenticide Act, Endangered Species Act and several others.

Fifty years later, despite all the efforts to protect and restore our environment, we find ourselves facing new national and international challenges that are the result of our collective human choices and their long-term impact.

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March is Women’s History Month and 2020 marks the 100^th anniversary of the 19^th Amendment granting women the right to vote. This month we focus on the role of women as Public Sector leaders and their achievements. Learn about the 19^th amendment here or start a book discussion about women who lead in the public sector.

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