Thank you, Jerome Tennille, CVA for being today’s #CVAspotlight! We’d like to recognize that today is Veterans Day in the USA. We thank Jerome for his military service and continued leadership in our field.
Jerome is the Manager of Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging & Corporate Social Responsibility Programs & Partnerships for Navy Federal Credit Union, the largest natural member credit union in the United States. He leads and manages enterprise-wide delivery for the credit union's signature volunteer programs, employee resource groups (ERGs), environmental sustainability programs, and philanthropic partnerships.
He is also a United States Navy veteran, serving as an Intelligence Specialist between 2004 and 2012. While this may seem like a contrast in work, it's actually through his military service that Jerome developed a greater sense of purpose, duty and service to his country.
Through his military career, Jerome supported the Global War on Terrorism and maritime security operations abroad, but also humanitarian aid operations in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and the evacuation of American Citizens from Beirut, Lebanon in 2006.
When transitioning from the Armed Forces in 2012, Jerome had to reframe his sense of service and changed his perspective on what serving the country meant. He adopted a mindset of former United States Army General Stanley A. McChrystal, a huge proponent of service. In fact, General McChrystal believed in National Service programs so much that he believed that every American should serve at least one year. This idea really resonated with Jerome: you don't need to serve in the military to serve your country.
Next, Jerome started working in the nonprofit sector for TAPS, a national nonprofit that serves military families who have lost a loved one who was serving. He became passionate about volunteer engagement and very purposefully chose this profession and achieved becoming Certified in Volunteer Administration and receiving his CVA.
He continues the work in corporate responsibility in part because he believes some of the greatest social change will be through more purposeful business practices: but it all started with getting his CVA!
Earning his CVA was the first step in truly committing to the professionalism required to engage people in service as volunteers, and has been one of the ways he’s been able to differentiate himself from his peers. “It's one of the best investments I've made in myself and for as long as I can, I will continue to maintain the credential,” he says.
Jerome is a co-editor of the book “Transforming Disruption to Impact: Rethinking Volunteer Engagement for a Rapidly Changing World,” available now at https://lnkd.in/gJ8eV2ze
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