Chapter Leader Guides Members in Pursuit of GCCC Certification

Arek Gazda serves on the board of IABC/Chicago as Director of Certification. In this specialized role, he is responsible for guiding members (including himself) through the GCCC certification process. One of his initiatives for 2024 was to start a study group, which he went about in three phases:

Phase one was to promote awareness of the benefits of GCCC certification, linking it with the IABC Career Assessment. Phase two was to invite people to join, and phase three was to start studying! The group meets every two weeks for one hour and has gone about this last phase in some interesting and creative ways:

• Identify someone within the group who has expertise and/or experience with a particular topic to lead that week’s discussion.
• Utilizing outside SMEs to lead discussions where there are knowledge gaps.
• Bringing in a test expert to discuss best practices for taking standardized tests.
• Discussing relevant Gold Quill and real-world case studies.