BRETT CHAMBERS

Vice President, Volunteer Engagement and Leadership

 

Areas of Expertise:

• Volunteer stewardship and engagement 
• CASE governance and board leadership
• CASE’s history and evolution

 

Credit: Daniel Peck

During the past year, CASE has celebrated its 50th anniversary. We’ve had champagne and cupcakes, debates and dialogues, reminiscing and reflections, and balloons and banners. It’s been wonderful.

Birthdays and anniversaries always cause me to take a moment to reflect, which those who know me will find highly unusual since I’m not a particularly reflective kind of guy. When conversations get too intense, I tend to deflect with humor and self-deprecation. (“Brett was deep and reflective” is not a sentence that will appear in my retirement announcement.) But for some reason, birthdays and anniversaries are different—and these past few months marking this milestone in CASE’s history feel especially poignant. 

I’ve spent nearly my entire professional career at CASE, which I suspect is unfathomable to my Gen X, millennial, and Gen Z colleagues. In 1987, fresh out of Indiana University, U.S., I responded to a Washington Post job posting for a position as a Conference Services Assistant. I knew nothing about the association, but I did know that I wanted to work in the education field and was drawn to CASE’s mission. In my new position, I assisted our small conference team with back-office and administrative tasks. While it may not have been the most stimulating position of my career, we always had a great time.

Since then, I’ve had many wonderful opportunities to grow into other increasingly expansive and challenging positions here at CASE. Along the way, gracious CASE mentors helped guide my journey. Today, I have the pleasure of working with many of our senior volunteers, including the CASE Board of Trustees and the three CASE Commissions. I also lead an amazing team of professionals who manage the work of our local district volunteers and targeted constituencies like independent and international schools and community colleges.

As I reflect on my three-plus decades at CASE, I’ve come to realize that the through line running across my professional tenure has been the people—the amazing volunteers I’ve had the privilege to know and support, the engaged members I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with regularly, and the wonderful CASE colleagues I’ve had the good fortune to work alongside. Whenever I’m asked what has kept me at CASE so long, my response is always, “It’s the people.” It may be cliché but it’s true. The CASE community is filled with some of the most enthusiastic, empathetic, and enlightened people I know. They’re also exceedingly fun.

You may hear that CASE stands for “Copy and Share Everything.” While it’s usually said tongue-in-cheek, it is nonetheless true. We’re a community of professionals who willingly share our successes, learn from our failures, and support each other through good times and bad. We believe in the missions of our institutions and the promise that education has a transformative impact on lives and society. That’s why I, and many of you, have devoted our professional careers to advancement. And that, in my humble opinion, is certainly something to celebrate.