The Greatest Boss Contest Winner
John Buck
Exeuctive Director
Elizabeth Richardson Center
Springdale, Arkansas
Non-Profit/Government Organizations Category
Nomination Essay
The best adjective to describe John Buck is "humble" - he is always wanting to showcase someone other than himself. In fact, he almost didn't do an interview with the local newspaper because they wanted to highlight him - and he kept directing them back to the staff and programs to keep the focus where he felt it should be.
The Elizabeth Richardson Center (ERC) provides services to children and adults with developmental disabilities, and John has been our Executive Director for 12 years. In that time, the center has added 3 Child Development Centers, expanded our programming for adults and created a "school to work" program for high school students. John works closely with the Board of Directors and in the last 4 years has overseen the development of an in-depth strategic plan that casts a long-range vision for ERC that is reviewed annually and has continuous input from staff on key performance measures.
John not only deals with the macro view as the Executive Director - but he also stays in touch with individual staff at all ERC programs. He takes the time to be involved in our new employee training so he can meet each new employee and share his vision for ERC and interact with them as they join ERC as employees. Weekly, John takes the time to write a personal note to each person with a birthday or service anniversary. With over 200 employees, this takes time each week - but he is very deliberate about wanting to say "Thank you" to each of our employees inthis way.
John takes the time to attend our client activities as well. The Child Development Centers have holiday parties and each one has a very special graduation ceremony. The adult programs have a formal dance and an annual awards banquet as well as picnics and other social events and John makes time to be actively involved. He would be the last person to seek recognition for the way he positively leads ERC as the organization moves forward in an ever-evolving world of social change.
