2010 ACTE Annual Convention and Career Tech Expo

Greetings from the fabulous city of Las Vegas! The HOSA National Executive council represented Health Science Career and Technical Education at the Association of Career and Technical Education annual conference located in Las Vegas, Nevada. President Elect, Sean Sheffer, Postsecondary Vice President, Rahma Mkuu, Region III Vice President, Chase Edwards, and Secondary Board Representative Shayna Mooney had the opportunity to attend the conference.

The ACTE Convention was held at the Las Vegas Hilton and Convention Center.

December 1, 2010

Today Rahma Mkuu attended the Region 1 meeting at the ACTE Convention. She addressed teachers, advisors and supervisors from the Region 1 meeting. Rahma addressed the delegates about how HOSA has impacted her life. She described how HOSA has motivated, inspired and given her opportunities to grow as a Health Care Profession. She shared her goal of fighting health care disparities in developing nations and utilizing HOSA’s partnership with the  United States Public Health Service. Rahma had the opportunity work with Ms. Mary Ann Bittner, the Region 1 President.




December 2, 2010

Rahma Mkuu worked with Miranda Terrell, 2nd Vice President of Nevada HOSA. Rahma and Miranda greeted ACTE convention delegates at the door along with other Nevada CTSO officers, prior to Opening Session.  

Dr. Gary Moore, ACTE President, opened the General Session. The Mayor of Las Vegas, Oscar Goodman, spoke of the importance of Career and Technical Education. He especially emphasized on the importance of Career and Technical Education to the economy.  Following Goodman was Assistent Secretary for the Office of Adult and Vocational Education from the US Department of Education, Brenda Dan-Messier.  She emphasized that “CTE and success are one in the same.”

Nie Wing, the CEO of KP Education Systems spoke at the ACTE opening session, of the importance of ‘Knowledge and Power’ and offered to give away a $100 gift card to Bestbuy for any audience member who guessed his date of birth within the closest range. Participants had to twitter at # KPEDU with a date.

Tim Sanders, New York Times  best selling author, public speaker and former Yahoo executive, spoke about the importance and value of networking. His message empowered the crowd that the most powerful tool, no matter how advanced the technology, people will always be the greatest resource. “Your network is your net worth.” “Relationships are about network of investment.”

Following the opening session, The National Executive team had the opportunity to inform ACTE delegates about HOSA by working an information booth. Rahma Mkuu took delegate’s blood pressures and informed them about the importance of maintaining a normal blood pressure. Delegates watched the HOSA thinkback video as well as picked up information on HOSA.The National Executive council met HOSA advisors from all over the nation that visited the booth. Delegates received HOSA hand sanitizers.



Rahma taking the blood pressure of an ACTE delegate.



December 3, 2010

Sean Sheffer and Chase Edwards had the opportunity to greet delegates at the door from 7:00 a.m. until the start of the awards session with other CTE student organization state officers from FBLA and DECA. The Friday General Session was hosted by the CTE Foundation.  The Chairman, Greg Rintala, spoke of engaging government, business, and education leaders to focus on how to utilize best practices and programs to improve CTE for students.



Sean greeting delegates for the general session.


Special Guests of the session were the Principal and two students from Southwest Career and Technical High School. A panel that included: Bryan Albrecht, President, Gateway Technical College, Gregg Betheil, Executive Director, School Programs & Partnerships, New York City Department of Education, John Lock, CEO, Project Lead the Way; and Felicia Nemcek, Principal, Southwest Career and Technical Academy discussed the importance and the redefinition of the significance between ‘learning’ and the ‘educator’. Without limiting students to the brick and mortar institutions with heavy circulation of books, educators can make a leap in inspiring students to learn from challege-based learning to project-based learning.

Shayna Mooney had the prestigious opportunity to be the Mistress of Ceremonies at the Awards Ceremony, which recognized the best career and technical educators in the country. The awards presented were the Outstanding Teacher in Community Service Award, the Carl Perkins Outstanding Service Award, Outstanding New Career and Technical Teacher Award, the Lifetime Achievement Award, and Teacher of the Year.



Shayna presenting at the Awards Ceremony

 At noon, National HOSA sponsored a Health Science CTE luncheon. Mrs. Shelia Carlton spoke on behalf of the MRC internship with the Office of the Surgeon General, and future events to come in HOSA. Ms. Grace Decken, the Vice President of the Health Sciences Division of ACTE, made updated the advisors and instructors the goals of the division, and also helped raise funds for the ACTE sponsored scholarship in a raffle. Lastly, guest speaker Mr. Byron Garrett spoke on behalf of the importance of all educators to this nation’s youth. Of the many accomplishments of Mr. Garrett, he is the former CEO of PTA, a child advocacy association of over five million members, a previous K-8 charter school teacher and current CEO of Lifeworks. He has appeared on the Dr. Phil Show, MSNBC and written articles for USA Today. With spoken resilience on behalf of education and a future for today’s youth, he inspired the crowd to take steps for a productive and impassioned future. 

Mr. Byron Garrett speaking during the HOSA luncheon. 

The National Officers met many inspirational educators at the conference, with a call to action, the future of HOSA and CTE’s come one step closer to improving America’s future.