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2025 National APSE Board Nominee: Venita Thomas, OH
2025 National APSE Board of Directors At-Large Candidate
CLICK to meet all nominees before the election ends on March 10.
Please describe your history/nature of involvement/interest in promoting competitive integrated employment in your state. Additionally, explain why you are passionate about competitive, integrated employment for people with disabilities:
Thirty years experience as a human resource professional and educator, adjunct professor/lecturer; proven success in developing and designing training programs and college curriculum; labor and employee relations including ghostwriting for arbitrations, dispute resolution, and mediation, research for negotiations, interviewing and selection, recruiting, supervisory tasks, and duties; familiar with major union and labor laws, also served as corporate presenter and trainer to several major Mid-west organizations and universities. I am IHE and MBTI certified and qualified, a State of Ohio certified Peer Support Recovery Specialist and Greater Cincinnati Veteran Women’s Alliance Executive Director. The author of the soon-to-be-released book, Rookwood Water, focuses on transitioning from the military into civilian life.
Website: www.https://vthomas.academia.edu/ Co-author featured in Rising Voices available on www.amazon.com. Published work: Words of Wisdom with Venita: Covid-19 Courage — Women of Cincy and Venita R. Thomas BrandVoice (forbes.com). Accepted into the 2023 National Women’s Studies Association-Women of Color Leadership Project (WoCLP) which was founded as a mentoring and support system to train and prepare women of color for leadership roles within the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) – https://www.nwsa.org/
What best represents your position/lived experience?
Person with a Disability; Family Member of a Person with a Disability; K-12 School Personnel; Teacher; University Staff; Employer or Business Owner; Human Resources Professional; Veteran
What skills, knowledge, or lived experience do you have that will contribute to strengthening and growing the financial health of APSE and promoting its mission to advance employment and self-sufficiency for all people with disabilities?
Thirty years experience as a human resource professional and educator, adjunct professor/lecturer; proven success in developing and designing training programs and college curriculum; labor and employee relations including ghostwriting for arbitrations, dispute resolution, and mediation, research for negotiations, interviewing and selection, recruiting, supervisory tasks, and duties; familiar with major union and labor laws, also served as corporate presenter and trainer to several major Mid-west organizations and universities. I am IHE and MBTI certified and qualified, a State of Ohio certified
Peer Support Recovery Specialist and Greater Cincinnati Veteran Women’s Alliance Executive Director. The author of the released book, Rookwood Water, focuses on transitioning from the military into civilian life. Website: www. https://vthomas.academia.edu/ Co-author featured in Rising Voices available on www.amazon.com. Published work:
Words of Wisdom with Venita: Covid-19 Courage — Women of Cincy and Venita R. Thomas BrandVoice (forbes.com). Accepted into the 2023 National Women’s Studies Association-Women of Color Leadership Project (WoCLP) which was founded as a mentoring and support system to train and prepare women of color for leadership roles within the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) – https://www.nwsa.org/
What relevance does/should APSE and its chapters/members have in national and state conversations regarding equity, diversity, and inclusion?
This is a great question. APSE would be a great and welcomed help to subcultures that have barriers that offer advocacy and support. https://youtu.be/mkiXlxtaoRw?si=4zbZHgmqmBBWS6Ob
Biography
Veteran Venita Thomas graduated from the University of Cincinnati and Xavier University with a Bachelor of Science in Human Resource Management, Master of Labor (Law) & Employment Relations, and Master of Education, respectively. Venita is a State of Ohio certified Peer Support Recovery Specialist and Director of Venita Thomas Workforce Consulting Services LLC; parent company to Graciously Seasoned Women’s Network & Greater Cincinnati Veteran Women’s Alliance. Her soon-to-be-released book, Rookwood Water, focuses on transitioning from the military into civilian life; Venita’s doctoral studies focus on business leadership & change management. Feel free to find out more about and contact Venita via https://vthomas.academia.edu/. Venita is a scholarly Co-author featured in Rising Voices available on amazon.com.