About This Award

The Bob Von Der Linn Outstanding Volunteer Service Award began in 2018 to recognize a chapter volunteer who has demonstrated a strong commitment to serving SEWI-ATD’s members and promoting its mission and vision to Southeastern Wisconsin’s workforce learning community within the calendar year. Often the individual is a subject matter expert in some aspect of the talent development field who has given time and expertise in service to the chapter. Nominees must be a SEWI-ATD member in good standing throughout the calendar year, may not be a current SEWI-ATD board member, and may not have won the award in the previous five years.

About Bob Von Der Linn

Bob joined SEWI-ASTD in 2008 after realizing he needed to build a new professional network, and was recruited into a programming role on the board of directors. By 2009, Bob stepped into the Secretary/Treasurer role and later became the VP of Finance. He instilled rigor and process that he had learned at GE to finances and decision-making on the board. He agreed to stay on the board as VP-Finance for as long as it took to see the chapter financially secure and thriving in the southeastern Wisconsin community. Through many changes of chapter leadership and administrators, Bob served as the “institutional memory” that helped keep the chapter moving forward.

By 2017, SEWI-ATD had achieved the vision that the board had back in 2009, and the commitment Bob had made many years before had been fulfilled. By mutual agreement with the board, Bob decided that 2018 would be his last year on the chapter leadership team. Bob is still active in the SEWI-ATD community and in January 2020, he became Director of Workforce Readiness on the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Wisconsin State Council.

Past Award Recipients

• 2023: Kathleen Volk
• 2022: Kari Bogdan
• 2021: Susan Keith
  
• 2020: Megan Cardenas
• 2019: Jennifer Buchholz
• 2018: Melissa Braun

Volunteer With Us!

Our strength as a chapter depends upon volunteers.  Accordingly, we'd like to invite you to grow professionally and cultivate your leadership skills while giving back to the community. We can match your interests and availability with volunteer opportunities.  If you don't yet have experience in an area that catches your eye?  No worries!  We’ll help you build your skills. 

Our volunteers enjoy: 

• Practicing and developing new talents in a safe environment

• Immersing themselves in their passions outside of work

• Meeting new people and engaging in additional networking opportunities

• Reinforcing existing relationships

• Finding a higher purpose by helping others

...and more!

There are short-term, and long-term opportunities available. Contact us today to get involved.  We can’t wait to work with you!