Event time:
Thursday, April 4, 2024 - 5:00pm
Location:
RSV Room (S200), Sterling Quad
409 Prospect St.
New Haven, CT
06511
Event description:
“Keys to Forging Partnerships and Collaborations That Achieve Extraordinary Results”
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The 2024 Woodbury Leadership Workshop with Carlton Highsmith will be on Thursday, April 4, at 5:00 pm in the RSV Room on the Sterling Quad.
Mr. Carlton Highsmith was born and grew up in the segregated south of the 1950’s and 1960’s. He will share experiences and remembrances from his early life and will introduce the audience to those individuals who were most influential in helping instill his values, shape his thinking and mold his world view. He will comment on the important role the Church played in helping his Black community survive and maintain its hopefulness.
Mr. Highsmith will then take the audience on the journey from his 1969 graduation from an all-Black segregated high school in North Carolina to his 1973 graduation from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of the world’s great academic and research institutions. A most improbable journey!
He will briefly describe his short 9-year corporate career and how that corporate career was cut short by his burning desire to become a successful entrepreneur and business owner, and he will briefly convey several key lessons learned from his entrepreneurial career.
After selling his business, Mr. Highsmith chose to dedicate the next phase of his life (15 years and counting) in service to others, as a philanthropist and humanitarian.
During the presentation, Carlton will tell the story of three (3) highly impactful and very successful organizations that he helped launch in New Haven over the past thirty (30) years. These are organizations that have transformed the lives and uplifted the hopes, dreams and aspirations of hundreds of those facing financial hardships in New Haven. Each of them are organizations where Highsmith serves (or served*) as Chairman of the Board of Directors and was a major funder. Each organization began with the recognition that effective collaboration was required.
- New Haven I Have A Dream Foundation*, founded in 1993.
- Connecticut Center for Arts & Technology (ConnCAT), founded in 2011.
- Connecticut Community Outreach & Revitalization Program (ConnCORP), founded in 2017.
Finally, we will be in conversation about the most important contribution that Pastors (and the Church) can bring to collaborations and partnerships with business, government and other agencies or organizations.
About our presenter…
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Carlton Highsmith has had an abiding impact on the city of New Haven.
In 2009, Mr. Highsmith’s company was recognized as the largest minority-owned firm in the State of Connecticut and was also ranked as high as #26 on Black Enterprise Magazine’s prestigious BE 100, an annual list of the largest and most successful Black-owned businesses in the United States.
Mr. Highsmith is a member of the historic Dixwell Avenue Congregational Church UCC in New Haven.