[img]2049|right|Suzanne Robins||no_popup[/img]Even though she invested six mid-career years in classrooms at the Middle School, School Board candidate Sue Robins brings to the campaign a business perspective unique to the four-person field.
Fulfilling a longtime dream when she founded her own business two years ago, the cerebral Ms. Robins has transitioned from teacher to curriculum developer.
“If you are not in the industry, it might not make a lot of sense,” she warned, “but I do curriculum development and instructional design.”
Noting the puzzled look on the face across the table at Tanner’s, she shined a brighter light. “The casual way of saying it is, I design, create and facilitate employee training. We create courseware. That could be a series of classes, a single class. It could be live, it could be online or a combination.”
The brow across the table still was furrowed.
“What I do,” Ms. Robins elaborated, “is talk to the client, typically a midsized corporation, and talk to them about what they want their employees to be able to do. Or what behavior they want to change. Or what new skills they want to add to their workforce. Then we figure the best way to do that, whether live or online training.”
Not that Ms. Robins has separated herself from school life.
Putting Career in a Blender
“I only have been in business (Culver City-based Ascend Training Solutions) for two years,” she said.
“And I do have a strong interest in pursuing curriculum development in the K through 12 world, particularly in the sciences because that is my background.”
More complicated is what lies at the root of Ms. Robins’s passionate interest in curriculums.
“I have always done it, since I first graduated college,” she said. “My first job was sales. The majority of my background is sales and marketing in the biotech industry. I ended up being the sales trainer, the person who developed the training courses. Because what we sold was so technologically advanced, we had to train our sales people in the science of it.”
Risking a trip into esoteric territory, which appeals more strongly to Ms. Robins, the design of curriculums or their contents?
She paused to reflect. “It is the challenge of the design I like,” she said. “It is a bit like doing a puzzle. I do Sudokus for fun, to relax. Crosswords and things like that,” providing an insight to how she feeds her regularly hungry mind.
“So this is the kind of thinking that appeals to me: ‘This is what we need, and this is what we have got, and how do we get from here to there?’”
(To be continued)
