For career services and recruiters, this month is a call to action: to ensure that LGBTQ+ students and professionals feel seen, supported, and empowered as they navigate the transition from classroom to career. By prioritizing equity and belonging, we not only help individuals thrive but also strengthen the workforce with diverse perspectives and talent.

Below are resources to help you learn more about the history of Pride and support the well-being and professional growth of the LGBTQ+ community:

• History of Pride Month
  
• Library of Congress Resources
  
• Human Rights Campaign (HRC)
  
• PFLAG
  
• The Trevor Project
  
• NAMI Pride

This May, MPACE celebrates Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month through the theme: “Power in Unity: Strengthening Communities Together.” As career services professionals and employer partners, we serve as "bridge builders"—connecting students to opportunities and fostering a deep sense of belonging. This year’s theme reflects the innovation, resilience, and connection we strive for in our daily work.
Join us this month as we honor AANHPI leaders who inspire collaborative action and empower the next generation to build upon their legacies.

Resources for Your Campus & Community

• Federal Asian Pacific American Council (FAPAC)
  
• Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month
  
• American Library Association
  
• Smithsonian
  
• PBS
  
• History Channel

• The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH)
  
• National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC)
  
• The HISTORY Channel
• The Smithsonian Institute
  
• Black Past

What attracted you to Enterprise Mobility, and why have you chosen to stay?

I started as an intern right out of college, so I didn’t have a ton of experience. I stayed because of the opportunity that Enterprise Mobility gave me. My managers, my mentors, and leaders in the company were able to provide support. I built a huge network within Enterprise Mobility—I was able to work my way up through the Management Training Program into the position that I’m currently in.

What are you responsible for in your role as a regional rental manager?
My job is to provide strategic direction to our team. I’m involved in everything from the hiring, training, and development of our team to fleet planning and revenue management, as well as providing direction within those areas. I find that the best way for me to do my job is not just to analyze and report on trends, but also to be on the ground. I spend most of my time working with the team at our locations.

How does your role impact the larger organization?
The business is split between home city locations and the airport. I manage one of the largest locations in the airport market. We have a large impact. We serve thousands of travelers every single day, and my job is to help provide direction and allocate cars to ensure that customers are provided with the best customer service possible.

What’s been your biggest accomplishment while you’ve been with the organization?
The most rewarding accomplishment is getting our team members promoted. I’m fortunate to be in the role that I’m in, and what motivates me is seeing team members get promoted. I was able to help multiple individuals get promoted to area managers and higher-level manager roles, in addition to branch managers and assistant managers. I would say that’s my biggest accomplishment with Enterprise Mobility.

Can you describe the people and culture at Enterprise Mobility?
The people are great, and that’s one of the reasons why I’ve stayed. I’ve met some of my best friends through Enterprise Mobility, and I met my wife through Enterprise Mobility.

Culturally, we are very people-centric. Senior leadership does a really good job of giving our people a voice. Everyone’s voice is heard, and it shows how much senior leadership and the company care for employees and customers. We are a company that puts our customers first. If we listen to our employees and our customers, great things will follow. And that’s something that I truly believe the company does well.

What has surprised you the most about working at the organization?
The biggest surprise happened when I was a summer intern at Enterprise Mobility. I watched and observed our branch managers and area managers; I wanted to know what they did, how they spent their day, how they spent their time, and when they came into the branches to do visits.

The biggest surprise to me was that they showed humility by getting into the daily grind with us. I remember having a branch rush where we had a lobby full of customers. Our area manager came in and saw that we had a few cars we needed to clean, and they jumped right in to clean them without asking if we needed help. That resonated with me because I’ve played sports and been part of a team my entire life. Seeing the leader of the team jump in was interesting, and that act of humility and teamwork is something that motivated me to become an area manager.

What type of individuals are most successful at Enterprise Mobility?
The individuals who are most successful at Enterprise Mobility are hardworking, flexible, and resilient. They have a customer service attitude and are team players.

What would you tell someone who's looking to join your team?
I’ve been with the company for 18 years because they took care of me. They provided me with the support and the professional development to get to my current position. I wouldn’t have thought that when joining Enterprise Mobility 18 years ago, I would still be with the company today. I didn’t know anything about the car rental business; I didn’t know anything about the mobility business. But I genuinely wake up excited to do what I do every day.

When you look at the opportunities that the company has, they’re endless. We started with a seven-car fleet in 1957, and now we’re the most trusted and largest mobility company in the world. When you look at all the opportunities, you look at the people, and you look at the amount of fun that we have day-to-day, I don’t think there’s a better place to work.

Can you touch more on the opportunities that Enterprise Mobility provides? How can early career professionals, including those who are pursuing a second career, enter the organization? What would their career path look like?
The great thing about Enterprise Mobility is that we promote from within. Many of the managers who are running rental branches as well as our vice presidents and senior leaders have gone through the internship or management training program. So, they’re able to give you real-life recommendations and advice because they’ve already experienced some of the things that interns and management trainees will experience throughout their early career journeys.

Finally, what excites you about your future at the organization?
We have a large global footprint. We’re not just a rental car company—we’re a global mobility solutions provider. We have multiple business lines worldwide, and we have rental branches in different parts of the world. For me, this is my third stop. I’ve worked in Las Vegas, Tucson, and now Nashville. Who knows where my next stop could be, but I’m excited to see what the future holds.

A Strategic Roadmap for the Future

A major milestone from the past fiscal year, and a central focus moving forward, is the launch of the MPACE Strategic Plan. This comprehensive, living document will guide the association’s priorities and decision-making in the years ahead, ensuring that MPACE remains responsive, relevant, and forward-looking.

The newly launched MPACE Strategic Plan serves as a dynamic roadmap for the organization. Built to evolve alongside the changing needs of the profession, the plan establishes clear direction through four foundational pillars that will inform decision-making, program development, and member engagement moving forward. The development of the Strategic Plan was a collaborative effort led by MPACE leadership and informed by broad stakeholder input.

View the Strategic Plan Here

Together, the Strategic Plan and Annual Report illustrate MPACE’s continued momentum and focus on sustainable growth, innovation, and service to the profession. These resources provide transparency into the association’s progress while outlining a clear path forward.

MPACE looks ahead with confidence, guided by a strategic vision that reinforces its mission and positions the association for continued impact and relevance.

• American Indian Higher Education Consortium
• Tribal College Journal of American Indian Higher Education
• Partnership with Native Americans
• How to Celebrate Native American Heritage Month
• National Museum of the American Indian

Resources:

1. U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP)

2. Job Accommodation Network (JAN)

3. National Organization on Disability

4. American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD)

5. Higher Education Recruitment Consortium (HERC) Diversity and Inclusion Resources

Leadership and management: I was looking for the how and the why. You know you’ve found a gem when a single experience gives you both. Last week, I had the great privilege of participating in the Management Leadership Institute (MLI) in Chicago hosted by the National Associations of Colleges and Employers. It quickly became one of the most meaningful and timely professional development opportunities of my career and I am especially grateful to MPACE for making my participation possible through their generous scholarship.

For those who are curious: MLI is a thoughtfully designed program that anchors tactical learning in the “Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership”, and is tailored specifically for career services professionals in higher education. What! #LeadershipBeyondManagement

Over the course of the week, we explored transformational leadership, ethics in career management, strategic planning, budgeting, competency development, employer engagement, brand strategy, and personal growth. The curriculum was incredibly rich, the faculty deeply knowledgeable and personable, and my cohort peers across the country brilliant, generous, and deeply committed. It made for powerful conversations, and collaborative problem-solving and idea-generation. I now have a notebook full of ideas, but I better just start with one idea or practice this fall, eh?

A big part of what made MLI transformational, however, was how personal it became. My own story has always informed the type of work and communities I felt drawn to, but I rarely made the connection between my lived experience and how I show up as a leader. As a pseudo-global nomad who spent most of her formative years adapting to new cultures, learning new languages, and navigating shifting environments, I learned early on how to build and maintain relationships across change. I learned to thrive in uncertainty. That kind of upbringing also cultivated a deep sensitivity to those on the margins and a desire to build systems that facilitate flourishing. I am just beginning to realize how much those early life lessons have shaped the foundation of my leadership: a blend of adaptability, intention, situational awareness, sensemaking, bridge-building, and the ability to see both people and initiatives through. And yet, as a recovering perfectionist, I am still learning: learning to lead with trust, to build capacity, and to more fully lean into the strengths of my team.

I’ve never been someone with a grand vision of landing a specific role “someday,” but I’ve always had a strong internal compass guiding me toward the kind of work I feel called to do. I’ve followed that thread, trusting that each experience would shape the next. Much of my career has unfolded within flatter organizational structures, where growth often looked lateral. And with a wide range of passions, that always felt like a natural path. But MLI was the first experience that helped me clearly envision what “forward” might look like. It offered a leadership framework that resonated, tools I could immediately apply (impeccable timing with my new-ish role as Associate Director), and a moment to pause and ask, what’s next for me? And of course, investing in that kind of reflection and growth ultimately benefits our students, our teams, and the field as a whole.

Thank you again to MPACE and NACE for investing in my growth. This experience (including my team’s Leadership Practice Inventory feedback) was such a gift, and one I commit to carrying forward with great intention.

If you are on the fence or just starting to look into MLI, take this as your nudge: go for it. It is truly a transformative experience.

Born and raised in a small, border side barrio of Laredo, Texas, Consuelo Castillo Kickbusch conquered the challenges of poverty, discrimination and illiteracy. Raised without material wealth, Consuelo learned from her immigrant parents that their wealth was in culture, tradition, values, and faith.

The values Consuelo learned as a child were reinforced throughout her career in the United States military. After graduating from Hardin Simmons University, Consuelo entered the U.S. Army as an officer and served for two decades. During that time, she broke barriers and set records when she  became the highest-ranking Mexican-American woman in the Combat Support Field of the U.S. Army.

When selected to assume a command post, Consuelo disrupted her advancement by deciding to retire. She chose instead to honor her mother’s dying wish – for her to return to her roots and become a community leader. In 1996, Consuelo Castillo Kickbusch founded the human development company, Educational Achievement Services, Inc. (EAS, Inc.), to fulfill her mission of preparing tomorrow’s leaders through grassroots leadership development.

Consuelo Kickbusch affirms that her greatest achievement stems from motherhood. She loves spending time with her husband, five daughters and six grandchildren.

Don't Miss Out On This Exciting Presentation On December 10th!

Living a Legacy: Journey to the Future
Are you living your legacy? A legacy is not just something a person leaves behind after they die; rather it is the way in which they live their life. Through an interactive and introspective presentation, Consuelo Castillo Kickbusch guides participants through their vision of the future and the goals that they want to accomplish for themselves and for their community. She inspires and challenges participants to become living legends in their professional and personal lives. Her unique emotional style of delivery that has the audiences rolling with laughter, attempting to hold back tears and inevitably on their feet in a standing ovation. Through humor and hard-hitting facts she encourages participants to be servant leaders at work and in their community. Participants learn to live their legacy by leading with their soul.

Register today!

Future Leaders Scholarship (FLS) Program

The Future Leaders Scholarship (FLS) is designed to support new professionals, such as graduate students, management trainees, campus ambassadors, interns, and others pursuing a career in career services or university relations. Awardees will gain valuable professional development experience by co-presenting an innovative session at the MPACE Annual Conference.

The scholarship includes:

• Conference Registration for the awardee 
  
• Travel (up to $600) for the awardee to attend the upcoming Annual MPACE Conference
  
• Two-night accommodation at the designated hotel location for the upcoming Annual MPACE Conference

Eligibility:
Applicants must be in a career services/university relations role for two years or less.

Deadline: Monday, September 15, 2025, at 5:00 PM (PST)

Learn More & Apply Here!

Conference Scholarship Opportunities

MPACE is also offering two full conference scholarships for professionals at any stage of their careers who are eager to expand their knowledge, network with peers, and invest in their professional growth.

The scholarship includes:

• Full conference registration
  
• Travel reimbursement (up to $500)

Eligibility:
Open to all professionals passionate about advancing in their field.

Deadline: Monday, September 29, 2025, at 5:00 PM (PST)

Learn More & Apply Here!

Take advantage of these opportunities and Raise the Stakes: Ignite Your Impact like never before at the MPACE Annual Conference.

We are pleased to announce our new director for Membership Development, Samantha O'Neill. Her experience will bring fresh perspectives to our team, guiding us through this transition period. Let's welcome them warmly and work together towards our common goals.

Meet Samantha O'Neill

Samantha has worked in career development for over 10 years in public and private college/university settings, K-12 school counseling roles, and in Career & Technical Education.  She graduated from the University of Northern Colorado with a B.S. in Psychology and M.A. in School Counseling. She is currently serving the Aurora Public Schools community as a Project Manager within Health Pathway industries and provides customized training and up-skilling in the Colorado market.  Samantha has her own consulting company and is a 200hr Certified Yoga Teacher.  She loves combining her passion for workforce & career development with mental health and wellness.

Take the survey

Career Launch is a social enterprise born inside higher ed who drives better outcomes through their award-winning curriculum, micro-learning videos, and NACE Career Readiness(+) Inventory. They are also a leading provider of certification training on career readiness and career-aligned social capital. Certification is open to staff and faculty, with nearly 1,000 higher ed professionals already certified.

To schedule a demo of the NACE Career Readiness Inventory, email impact@careerlaunch.academy.

Future leaders wanted to share innovation in the profession. The Future Leaders Scholarship (FLS) program developed by MPACE is intended as an opportunity for new professionals (including graduate students, management trainees, campus ambassadors, interns, and more) to showcase their creativity and innovation in the field of career services/university relations while gaining a valuable conference experience. Applicants must be exploring and/or pursuing career services/university relations as a career and be available to attend and co-present a presentation at the upcoming MPACE annual conference.

Benefits:

Develop professionally and build upon their leadership skills through presenting at the MPACE conference.
Expand their professional network and participate in the entire conference.
The selected applicant, under the guidance of an experienced professional of their choice (minimum of 3 years in the field), will present an innovative workshop at the upcoming Annual MPACE Conference.

SCHOLARSHIP ELIGIBILITY:
Applicants must be in a career services/university relations role for 2 years or less.

APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS:
1. Innovative Presentation Proposal Co-Presented with an Experienced Career Service Professional

  2. Recommendation Form

You may wish to contact current Board members for insight into the role prior to nominating yourself or another individual. View our Board of Directors webpage for contact information.

If chosen to be on the voting slate, all nominees shall provide written consent and acknowledgement from both their employer and themselves of their consent and willingness to serve.

Nomination processes closes Friday, September 27, 2024.

The final slate will be determined by the Nominations Committee and presented and approved upon by the Board of Directors. The nominations committee will adhere to the bylaws of MPACE in attempting to balance the geographic, organizational and diversity representation for open positions.

Learn more and submit your nomination!

Some favorite takeaways from my experience at NACE MLI: Financial planning and budgeting are the funniest topics. To transform career services, keep a clown nose in your desk. Ethics can be entertaining, and at the same time, very serious business.
 
When I landed in Chicago to join the NACE Management Leadership Institute (MLI) 2024 cohort, I didn’t know what to expect. I thought it may be like the conferences I have attended: Relevant topics, interesting discussions, and opportunities to network. What I found was that MLI is that, but much more. I learned from MLI Alumni and faculty about not only the topics they presented but also their career journeys and experiences. How they have grown as leaders applied these topics to their work, and impacted others. I found the topics extremely valuable, and the courses endlessly entertaining! We had not only presentations, but discussions, case studies, group work, and share-outs that made me think about the topics in a new way. I felt inspired by my MLI colleagues, hearing their stories and different points of view. I have never been in a room of more motivated, empathetic, ambitious, and innovative people. In addition to the invaluable professional development I received at MLI, I also walked away with new friendships and professional connections. After each day of sessions, we had ample time to connect and explore Chicago as a cohort. We enjoyed free concerts in Millennium Park, laughed at Second City standup and improv, and learned about Chicago architecture on a sunset river cruise. I feel that I have left MLI with new friends and potential mentors.
 
NACE MLI was a space for growth and tough questions. I learned more about myself, and what it takes to be a leader in career services. I learned that leadership begins from within, and there is no one-size-fits-all type of leadership. Many leaders choose to lead in different ways, incorporating their unique stories and skill sets. NACE MLI showed me how to use my unique background and strengths to lead my organization.
 
Some key takeaways from my MLI experience are: Use storytelling as a key leadership skill and leverage your own experiences to guide how you help others achieve their own career and life design. Measure outcomes, output, and impact in career services. Remember that metrics do not always tell the whole story. Build your team around ethics, you don’t have to tackle this topic alone. Consider AI as a generative tool, and understand bias is built into it. Question the user and always check results. Strategic planning will determine the success of your office. Generate the vision that guides future decisions and actions, and include allocation of time, money, and talent. If you don’t plan your future, someone else will do it for you. Finances and budget are some of the hardest areas of change in career services. Approach financial planning with an understanding of resource management, and use benchmarking with other universities to your advantage. For student success, build NACE Career Competencies into all career services, and leverage career champions at your university. I learned that building a brand around career services is about exploring imagination and making students part of the process. Regarding employer and external relations, I learned to be more tactical, less operational, and more proactive as well as reactive. Building lasting relationships is about trust and transparency, as well as about becoming a consultant and a specialist in understanding what students want from employers. I took away so many lessons from MLI, I felt that I had a brand new toolkit to pull from when I returned to work.
 
In my professional growth and development, MLI helped me to see how my own self-discovery will positively impact those around me. By exploring my "Why", I discovered the reason I chose to work in Career Services which in turn reignited my passion for my work. I left MLI feeling empowered to make changes in the way I lead every day, bringing more of my Why into everything I do. The leadership principles of model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act, and encourage the heart will always be ingrained in my personal and professional goals. Looking forward, I plan to implement more of the leadership principles with my team. I plan to lead strategic planning and team building in the coming months to inspire my teammates in the same way that MLI inspired me. I look forward to sharing the principles with them and bringing leadership to the forefront of my work in the next year. As I manage my own team, and help them grow and develop their leadership skills, I will use the lessons learned from MLI and recount the action items I have taken away from my time at MLI.
 
Reflecting on my time spent at NACE MLI, I feel incredibly grateful and honored to have been awarded the scholarship to attend the program. I gained so much in my time there, and feel empowered to make real change. I recommend that everyone who plans to be a leader in their field, attend NACE MLI, as it will make you learn so much about leadership and yourself.
 
Maggie Cutler Young
Assistant Director, Employer Relations
Viterbi Career Connections

We are pleased to announce our new interim director for the Pacific North region, Katrina Whitney. Her experience will bring fresh perspectives to our team, guiding us through this transition period. Let's welcome them warmly and work together towards our common goals.

Kassandra Hinerman has done an excellent job as the Pac North Regional Director. Her dedication and leadership have been instrumental in the region's success. We congratulate her on her promotion to the Enterprise Mobility World Headquarters in St. Louis, and we are confident that she will continue to excel in her new role.

Meet Katrina Whitney

I am a higher education professional with 16 years of leadership in student support and career development. Currently, I serve as the Director of Career Services at Central Washington University, where I oversee operations across multiple locations and manage a team of ten dedicated professionals. My strategic initiatives focus on integrating equity-minded practices, enhancing campus awareness, and maximizing student engagement through innovative initiatives. Prior to my current role, I held positions as Assistant Director and Interim Director at the Diversity and Equity Center, where I led hiring, training, and partnership initiatives to promote diversity and inclusion. In my earlier role as Senior Director at the Center for Student Empowerment, I successfully expanded program budgets and effectiveness. I am actively involved in national and regional professional associations, demonstrating my commitment to advancing student success and diversity in higher education.

We hope you will explore these resources that could aid in understanding, supporting, and serving our AAPI students, alumni, and colleagues.

• Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education

• Study Shows How Higher Education Supports Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Students Through Culturally Relevant Courses, Programs, and Research

• WHIAANHPI Announces New Steps to Support Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Students, Educators, and Academic Institutions

• Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

• White House Proclamation on Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month 

• Asian Pacific Islander American Scholars

• Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics

• Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center

If you would like to know about the DEI Committee or share additional resources and recommendations, please contact Roshni D. Lal, Ph.D. at rlal01@syr.edu.

My first experience with career services began at a for-profit institution and I did not have prior career services education or training. It was an entry-level job but my gumption to become a master at this work and support the students we served made me commit to a journey of self- education and learning. It wasn’t until I started working at a 4-year large institution in career services at California State University Long Beach did I learn about the MPACE community. My former director, Manuel Perez, had been actively involved in our national and regional professional associations and through his modeling, I aspired to also move towards leadership within an association one day. We had the opportunity to sign up for an MPACE conference my first year in 2014 to San Francisco and I jumped on the opportunity.

This conference was incredibly memorable as I remember as a new professional being blown away by all of the thought-leadership within the association, and innovative initiatives being spearheaded by my peers. Here was an association that not only was doing incredibly inspiring work, but also a community of people and mentors that I could lean on for best practices and resources. I was no longer alone, and my world within employer relations and career services had grown exponentially within a week.

After that first conference, I knew that MPACE was the community I wanted to be part of and to invest in. I started regularly participating in regional events and site visits, and started to build my network within the Pacific South region. I took my commitment a step further and volunteered for a conference committee within the Publicity Committee during the 2016 conference and started to meet others within leadership in the association. I began to submit proposals to present at upcoming conferences and was selected to present on CRM implementation for employer engagement tracking, and most recently on first destination survey initiatives. I signed up for anything and everything – as much as my employer would allow – so that I could grow within my own professional journey and for the opportunity to meet others within the field. Over time, this community became more than just colleagues, but also life-long friends – people I could call on when I was in a crossroads of what to do on a particular issue or even mentor me as I navigated my own career questions.

Because of my MPACE network that I had developed, I had the privilege of getting to know Elizabeth Montgomery during her time as the Pacific South Regional Director and we stayed connected ever since. During the 2019 conference, Elizabeth approached me and asked if I might be interested in an Associate Director of Employer Relations role that they were recruiting at UC Riverside at the time. I was blown away that she would even think of me for this position, but never would have considered it prior since it would require me to uproot my family from Long Beach, a place that I called home and had grown to love. It took some time, but with the support of my husband, we decided to throw our hat in the ring, and to our shock and surprise, I was offered the position! My professional world drastically changed by saying yes to both a new region as well as my first manager position.

As much as I aspired to grow in leadership within the MPACE community, it wasn’t until I moved to UC Riverside in 2020 under Sean Gil’s did I actually have someone who was willing to sponsor me and encourage me to pursue Board roles within the association. As a former MPACE Regional Director, he recommended that I get involved in the Pacific South regional committee and immediately nominated me for the Regional Director role. I knew the Regional Director, Erica Privott, from my involvement prior and was thrilled for the opportunity to learn and grow under her leadership. I was surprised and humbled to officially step onto the MPACE Board in the summer of 2021 as the Pacific South Regional Director under Espie Santiago and Andy Rabitoy’s leadership.

My time as a Regional Director has affirmed my love for this profession, and afforded me the opportunity to give back to this community in meaningful ways and carry on the legacy that my predecessors had done before me. Although the role required much of me, it never felt like work but more as a passion project.

Even as a new leader and manager, I was also given the opportunity for continued professional development through winning the MPACE scholarship to attend the NACE Management Leadership Institute in 2022. The learning that took place was invaluable and access to thought- leaders across the nation was an opportunity of a lifetime, and all of that was made possible through MPACE.

Now as I wrap up my time on the Board and don’t have an official role or title within the association, I know that this association has become so much more than a place to hang my professional hat on. It has become a place and a community that I can say is like family and whom I know I will always be indebted to for my career.

As I now am entering into my second decade within career services, my hope is that I too can be an Espie, an Andy, an Elizabeth, a Sean, or an Erica to someone else in the MPACE community – see their potential, call out their strengths, and give them opportunities to shine and sharpen their talents within the community. MPACE is a home for so many to showcase their talents, forge lifelong connections, and maximize career opportunities. All are welcome here.

Join MPACE today! Already a member? Submit your MPACE story to casey.k.porter@ehi.com.