Leadership Montezuma is preparing to kick-start its quarterly, 10-month training aimed at training and educating local community members and business owners on three main pillars – educating, peer networking and leadership.

It also will introduce a new program this year.

The Montezuma Leadership Network begins Aug. 24 with a mandatory retreat, and the classes will run nine days – second Thursday of each month, September through May, typically 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. – with a different topic each week.

The topics include water, agriculture and natural resources; Ute Mountain Ute Tribe; culture and arts; nonprofit leadership, board training and leadership development; education; health and human services; public safety; local government and special districts and community economics.

Leadership Montezuma has been present in the area for more than 20 years.

“The education pillar takes on the quarterly trainings, and the leadership pillar is responsible for our Leadership Montezuma program. And then the networking pillar is a newer endeavor, and its goal is to create a network of leaders within our community,” Community Involvement Coordinator Mary Jo Standard told The Journal.

She said the program teaches valuable skills and provides information about the community.

“Our community is really rich and diverse and we are recognizing here that we don't all know everything about our community,” she said.

The program utilizes nine themed days.

“It's neat, because I think that it's a flexible program where we recognize needs to change to fit the current needs of the community,” Standard said.

As an example, Standard said in 2019, they didn’t have a community economics day, but they do now.

Tuition for the network is $500, but Standard said many local businesses will pay the cost of the tuition for their employee. Scholarships are also available.

Standard said that they look forward to last quarter’s students planning the upcoming retreat for the upcoming students.

“After people go through the first year and the nine days and the retreat and all that, then they turn into the ones that plan the next year,” Standard said. “So, it's a two-year commitment.”

The leadership network can accept 20 to 25 students, and they travel all over the county for their classes.

To apply, go online at https://bit.ly/4cmMlM6. The deadline is July 26.

Leadership Montezuma is going to be hosting a new program to help emphasize and grow leaders in the community.

“We have a new program that we're launching this year to help fill leadership gaps in the community,” Standard said. “It’s called leadership academy, and it’s those really hard skills that you need to go out and lead within our community.”

The leadership academy is a five-month program, and the application also closes July 26 and will begin on Sept. 5 at 9:30 a.m.

The first day will begin with a 30-minute overview of expectations and will be followed by five comprehensive days that will take place on the first Thursday of each month, September through January.

Other than the first session, classes will take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The five sessions that will be covered are strengths-based leadership, conflict resolution, the psychology of effective communication, supervision and effective facilitation. Participants will also do the Clifton Strengths 34 assessment, which teaches people their leadership strengths, and how they can integrate those strengths into their work.

“We will start each session with a little bit of Clifton Strengths work just so that we can continue to connect our strengths to the topic of the day,” Standard said. “We're really hoping that this balances out and is a really between the two programs is a cohesive program to help grow leadership within our community.”

Registration for the leadership academy can be found at the link https://bit.ly/4ctXb2J.

Informational sessions are July 9 from 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. at Mesa Cafe Cortez; 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. at Tribal Conference Building in the War Room; 2:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. at Canyons of the Ancients Visitor Center and Museum; 5 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at Cortez City Hall; and July 17 from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Mancos Brewing Co.