Blog
Edward Steinberger, Michigan
2021 National APSE Board of Directors At-Large Candidate
How many years have you been involved in integrated employment/supported employment?
26 years
The area(s) that best represents your current position/experience:
Advocate, Case Manager, Local Agency Representative, Service Provider or Manager, Director
Describe your history/nature of involvement/interest in integrated employment/supported employment.
I have been involved with working towards helping people with disabilities and other mitigating factors secure employment for over 26 years. Within the scope of my employment, I have held many positions in the Detroit Non-Profit arena. For the last 15 plus years I have built, supervised and managed multiple programs. I have done federally (NIH) funded research in partnership with the University of Michigan. I am currently responsible for a large skill building program whose goal is to help adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities achieve both employment and personal independence.
How will you be able to contribute to the growth and improvement of APSE as an organization?
I think I can give a unique perspective of a professional that has spent their entire career in a minority-majority city like Detroit and the unique challenges it faces in delivering quality services to the employment-seeking population of adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities that a large urban area has. I have a unique perspective in that I have worked pretty much every job in this industry from being a front-line staff in a boy’s home with adjudicated adolescent males with educational special needs to be the director of a large career center in the heart of Detroit. I have been a behavior specialist, a social worker, a supervisor of social workers, and other professional staff. I have managed programs and I am now the Director of Goodwill’s Detroit Career Center. I develop and manage multiple seven-figure budgets as well as the operations and staff of the entire Career Center.
Biography
For over twenty-six years, I have taken on progressively challenging assignments professionally in the non-profit sector in the Detroit metropolitan area. Much of my experience has included managing and coaching staff to deliver exceptional program services. Strategic planning, developing and meeting multi-million-dollar budgets while analyzing sector strategies in order to expand operations and revenue has been another major role that I have been responsible for. I have enjoyed great success building program capacity across multiple operational environments. Over the years, I have developed, supervised and managed many teams as a supervisor, manager and director.
For over five years, I have been the Director of the Detroit Career Center for Goodwill Industries of Greater Detroit’s Detroit Career Center where I am an integral part of the Employment and Training divisions’ leadership team. The Detroit Career Center (DCC) was (pre-COVID) a large (25 staff, 450+ consumers and clients/year) multi-program (including a large Medicaid funded Skill Building program for adults with Intellectual or Developmental Disabilities (IDD), as well as a large Supports Coordination component, also for the IDD population) operation. The DCC has multiple significant six and seven-figure budgets that I have developed for the past five fiscal years as well as for fiscal year 2021.Ideliveredfiscal years 2016-2019 with significant revenue growth each year. In fiscal year 2019, as Director, I delivered a surplus of $442,000 over revenue projections back to the Employment and Training division. In 2019, I led the Detroit Career Center through our second CARF survey in 4 years with no recommendations for the entire DCC. Employee engagement and development, process management and the ability to leverage employee strengths to engage creative and practical outcomes are several things that I take great pride in.
Before coming to Goodwill, I spent over sixteen years at JVS where I was afforded many opportunities to manage, design, evaluate, assess, improve and run programming implementing outcome-based best practices, while also developing budgets and program goals. During my tenure, we consistently met or exceeded funding source metrics to positively impact thousands of participants with special needs lives in areas such as, mental health, poverty mitigation, incarceration, homelessness and veteran’s services; often providing immediate responses and meeting real-time needs, especially when dealing with chronically homeless populations. While at JVS, I was also the Detroit lead on two National Institutes of Health (NIH) sponsored research grants in partnership with the University of Michigan. I am a coalition builder and I am known throughout the Detroit non-profit arena for developing strong partnerships and multi as well as intra-agency collaborations. In 2017, I participated in the inaugural class of the Detroit Workforce System Leadership Development Academy. This unique experience culminated in my and my fellow academy member’s recognition as Aspen Economic Opportunity Fellows.
Throughout my professional tenure, I have enjoyed a reputation as a tireless and aggressive advocate and steward for all of the clients, consumers, staff, programs and organizations that I have worked with. I believe my well-honed analytical and communication skills and my academic as well as professional background in psychology and strategic leadership give me a unique ability to identify and respond to client, stakeholder and organizational needs. Vision, strategy, creativity and leadership are my passion. I believe I can bring these qualities and skills in this role as well. Over my career, I have consistently demonstrated the ability to lead and influence across multiple levels of organizational structure to enhance effectiveness and deliver solid ROI on multiple projects concurrently. I have excellent organizational skills and I am used to fast-paced environments with high expectations. I am highly skilled at interpreting business needs and I am very comfortable making decisions based on evolving needs and changing priorities. My integrity is unchallenged and my respect for confidentiality has been unwavering throughout my career.