This award is the highest honor of TOC. It is awarded to senior trainers who during their careers not only contributed substantially to TOC but through their ethics, dedication and leadership, served as role models for the training community. You get the idea!
I feel like a super rock star who gets the award and goes to the microphone and thanks God and all the people who were instrumental in their success. I can understand because, the rock star would not have made it had not been for the help and encouragement they received. I feel the same way.
I would like to thank the Great Creator for allowing me to be honored by my peers while I am still alive.
I would also like to shout out to a few people.
Dr. Bill Shelton (George Washington University) and Ron Gurley (Department of Agriculture), my TOC mentors over 20 plus years ago. They were practicing diversity before it had a name.
I would like to thank my grandmother, Willie Bright Woods, a graduate of Fisk University, who taught me how to be independent and how to read and write at the age of four.
I would like to thank my grandfather, Otey Douglas Woods who taught me about the civil rights movement in the U.S. and the value of each human being.
I also would like to thank several role models no longer with us.
Dr. Dorothy Height for her leadership as the Chair of the National Council of Negro Women
Lena Horne, entertainer and civil rights advocate, for her talent, courage, style and grace.
Ruby Bowerman, my mother-in-law and an original "Rosey the Riveter" who has taught me about courage, perseverance and faith.
I am so honored. I accept this award with gratitude and a deep sense of humility.
I will end with this quote by John Ruskin:
"The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it."
Dianne Floyd Sutton is President of Sutton Enterprises, author, trainer, educator, facilitator, expert witness, coach and actor. She has twenty-five years of combined experience in Human Resource Development (HRD) and Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) training. And she has twenty years of business experience as Sutton Enterprises.
