By Anna Skinner
Todd Burtron, chief of staff for the City of Westfield, recently attended a weeklong class at Harvard to further his education in leadership.
Burtron, who holds an undergrad in business management and an associate’s degree in public safety from Indiana Wesleyan, said that the mayor always encourages furthering education to help with his role in the city, but that Burtron decided to take the class on his own accord.
“I recognized it (leadership) was something important to continuously run as one of core values for the city and I’m in a pretty significant role in leading the city so I was selected through an application process to go through the leadership course,” Burtron said.
The 50 hour course was spanned out over six days. The subject matters included emotional bias, decision making, conflict resolution and negotiation.
“All of which I have already brought back to the city and our leadership team to make us better decision makers,” Burtron said. “That’s really the impact, that I get to relay this information and include it in our daily activities.”
Burtron was one amongst 70 participants, coming from across the globe. Burtron said that several influential world leaders attended the course.
“Running a city is an incredibly complex and diverse thing to do,” Burtron said. “There’s a significant amount of responsibility placed on this role I am in. The mayor encourages continuous improvement of education in staff. This particular program is second-to-none.”
Burtron is just finishing up four years of being Westfield’s chief of staff. Currently, he has not signed up for any further courses but is keeping an open mind.
“We are always improving and trying to become better with opportunities that may come about,” Burtron said. “We encourage all of our leadership team to expose themselves to higher learning and advanced learning. I’m sure there will be other opportunities in the future.”
