Since February, when I was told that I was leaving quite suddenly, I began thinking who I might train for some of my roles here, the joke around town has been that it takes 2-3 individuals to fill those various roles.
I believe that a good leader or CEO, knows the strengths of their collective group. In our group, the COLLECTIVE, I have always known that CAT VOSS is an amazing leader.
When I sought to fill the roles of leadership here for each unit, Cat was my first choice. Cat is an artist, that is how I know her. What I didn’t know is that she is also passionate, driven, caring and quite intelligent.
Ms.. Voss has an obscene amount of time, which was to my advantage when building the program, I was specifically seeking out those with long sentences who had an understanding of the way things work here, who had done the work on themselves.
The more I’ve gotten to know her, the more passionate I have become in advocating for her early release. Mostly for selfish reasons, she would make a great contribution to my plans post-reentry!
When I presented my plans to Ms.. Voss; my vision for the Peer Success Team and the governing think tank, she was all in from the beginning. It was so beautiful to watch as she was so obviously starved for challenge and purpose.
Over the course of the past year, when I have given an assignment, Cat was the one who took the initiative to implement the idea into her corner of the program. She became the best example of what the expectations for each units PST.
She runs Unicor here and works long hours, yet she always made time to mentor, train her mentors, and host community events. She has been key in producing our documents and getting copies made and distributed for the group.
When she and I were planning the Peer Success Training Event last year, we were brainstorming ways to demonstrate how an artist displays their work, cataloging it etc… and we suddenly both agreed that she must make a portrait of Santos, I knew it would be spectacular.
As an artist, I know what talent she possesses as she has the ability to do brilliant portraits ON A SWEATSHIRT or anything.
Often times, and in my case, that sort of talent cancels out serious left brain skills such as organization and technology format. In the case of Ms… Voss, she is simply great at everything.
I have been training her to be a strong and confident leader for some time now and she is receptive to my feedback, and I find this to be golden.
When I found out I was leaving, I had no hesitation in passing over the leadership role of the PST to Ms… Voss.
Ms. Voss is an ambassadore for the PPT website and and advocate for positive change.
This letter is to give my full support and requst that she be considered for the full range of benefits of recognition and reward.
Ms. Voss, although she is much needed here, would be a lovely attribute to any company and community.
With Deep Sincerty,
Celeste Monette Blair
Creator of PEER SUCCESS TEAM
& COLLECTIVE
