Still learning after all these years.

Over the past three or four years, I have been invited to speak at many of your chapter functions, and I always talk about a variety of ways that people can contribute to their profession and to their own professional growth.

One of the many things I stress to members is to be active in their professional associations--and over the years, I have tried to practice what I preach. That's why, when my home chapter (Mount Vemon--"The Other Washington Chapter") was looking for officers, I volunteered for program chair and ran unopposed.

Those of you who have been program chairs will understand. I figured that I had worked in ASMC long enough to be getting kind of stale when it came to understanding chapter operations in the field. We established a year-long theme of building our members into highly skilled consumers of professional development opportunities. We are doing this by inviting members from the training and education community to speak and to encourage our membership to get involved.

For this reason I invited Mr. Alvin Tucker, a former boss, mentor, and good friend, to speak on two topics at our most recent luncheon: "The Other Certifications," to provide some balance on the topic because we had spent much of our energy the past few years concentrating on CDFM, and on what employers look for in hiring, since several of our members now are developing the same gray pigmentation in their hair as I have and may soon be looking for second careers.

With a long, varied, and distinguished background in government financial management, Al Tucker was a great choice for this talk. He holds four certifications--CPA, CDFM, CGFM, and CIA. He worked with the Association of Government Accountants to develop the Certified Government Financial Manager and again later with ASMC during development of the CDFM designation. He sits on the ASMC Certification Commission, the senior steering group for the CDFM.

In addition Al worked with the Association of Government Accountants during development of the Certified Government Financial Manager and again later with ASMC as we developed the Certified Defense Financial Manager designation. Now retired from the federal government, he sits on the ASMC Certification Commission, the senior steering group for the CDFM.

While Al Tucker spoke fondly of his government career, ("I always had great jobs!"), he also spoke fondly of the phase of his life he calls "the hereafter"--we are all here after our years of federal service. He talked about his early decision to sit for the CPA, remembering the enormous amount of study and work that went into it and the personal investment of time and money.

He reminisced on the colleagues and bosses who said, "What are you doing that for? You don't need that! It won't do you any good!" He said simply but emphatically, "They were wrong and I'm a CPA! They were wrong then and anybody who tells you that now is wrong! They are just plain wrong!"

And I realized that Al had just spoken the plainest, best-reasoned argument that I have ever heard for all kinds of professional development.

Let me explain. When I was a very junior civil servant at Fort Monroe, Virginia, I had an authoritarian boss, a retired lieutenant colonel named Henry Stone. He "made" me go to William and Mary to get a master's degree. And, at the time, I resented it heartily. Night after night of reading, classes, and studying on top of my full-time job, thesis writing, exams--and all the while using up my good GI Bill and paying for my own books to boot.

But only a few years later, I was chosen for a great job on the HQDA staff, and my career took off--because of Henry Stone and the degree he "made" me get.

Similarly, a close friend was working on her master's degree in public administration after duty hours when the local personnel office decided to stop supporting her courses financially. She made the personal investment in time and dollars and earned the degree. As a direct result, she was chosen for the Defense Leadership Management Program, was sent to the Naval War College (NWC) in Newport, Rhode Island, for another degree, and returned to Washington to a promotion 18 months later after a stint as an NWC professor.

Anybody who tells you you're wasting your time, no matter what professional development opportunity you're taking, is just wrong. Always was and always will be wrong.

Al extolled the virtues of the Enhanced Defense Financial Management Training Course. It is free (centrally funded by DoD), and it offers college credit. To a good extent, the course presents instruction on areas covered in the CDFM examination. And now the exams are free (reimbursed according to service policy or by GI Bill). He said, "I can't understand why you wouldn't do it. You have nothing to lose."

During the question-and-answer session after his talk, I asked Al about how his company views college degrees. He said, "When we are looking at hiring a young person, if he or she hasn't gotten a master's degree, we wonder where his or her head is!"

On one hand, coming from someone who has worked successfully at the levels and in the jobs that Al has, his luncheon speech made me feel pretty good because it reinforced in no uncertain terms the things I have been talking and writing about for some time. On the other hand, it challenged me to start studying and to sit for another certification even though I too belong to Al Tucker's hereafter.

According to Al, I'd be crazy not to.

Al's message is clear to all of us. Successful people take advantage of developmental opportunities; they work hard, and they aren't discouraged by adversity. Anyone who says differently is just plain "Wrong!"

We are in an environment where developmental opportunities abound from local community colleges, four-year colleges, and graduate institutions to online training available free from the Defense Acquisition University. Career development is a two-way street.

A year ago, when I wrote this column, we had just awarded the 1,000th CDFM to Ms. Phyllis Snyder, a budget analyst from Fort Leonard Wood. Now we are on the way to 2,000.

Care to join us?