Young train for the reins in Dalton

DALTON, Ga. — Training young professionals to someday be community leaders is the goal of the Dalton-Whitfield Chamber of Commerce’s third Emerging Leaders Institute.

Phyllis Stephens, senior vice president with the chamber, said the program focuses on “leadership skills development.”

The Emerging Leaders program consists of six full-day sessions over several months on topics such as effective communication, managing conflict, local governance and community diversity.

The next step for some of its graduates is Leadership Dalton-Whitfield — a yearlong program that begins in August and delves deeper into community issues, she said.

“We want this to be a leadership continuum,” Mrs. Stephens said.

Sessions are held at different locations and run by Leadership Dalton-Whitfield alumni.

Ali Donahue, 25, marketing director for the Northwest Georgia Healthcare Partnership, was accepted into the program’s first class in 2008.

Ms. Donahue, who moved to Dalton from Iowa in 2007, said she met other young professionals and learned a lot about the community in the program. She said she also developed skills for her everyday work.

“Nearly every day there’s something I can take from Emerging Leaders and apply it to my career,” she said.

Ms. Donahue said she completed the Leadership Dalton-Whitfield program after Emerging Leaders and said the senior program would have been “somewhat overwhelming” without the initial course.

Jackie Killings, 33, senior sustainable materials engineer with Mohawk Industries, graduated from the Emerging Leaders program in 2009 and said it helped her integrate into the community after moving to the area from Auburn, Ala.

“The main thing it did for me was introduce me to other people in the community and different community leaders that spoke to us at our different sessions,” she said. “It helped me just learn a lot about this community.”

She’s one of six emerging leaders enrolled in this year’s Leadership Dalton-Whitfield program.