Once the snow melts, Dennis Harden will be running the trails in Des Moines, Iowa. For now, he’ll have to stick to running the state’s Bureau of Career and Technical Education (CTE) as the new CTE Bureau Chief.
Dennis comes to this role from Missouri, where he served as CTE Coordinator for two decades, working across several realms including guidance and counseling, equity and of course, Perkins planning. Dennis started his CTE career at the Missouri Department of Education, supervising a customized business and industry program. Dennis also spent four years working as the director of skilled technical sciences, health sciences and industrial technology.
In the coming years, Dennis is looking forward to getting the Iowa Perkins V plan across the finish line. He will also lead the team in continuing to work through the Future Ready Iowa initiative, a redesign of the state’s CTE programs that aims to improve access to high-quality CTE throughout the state by promoting regional planning partnerships and aligning CTE programs to in-demand occupations. Dennis and his team will consider how they can best help educators implement changes as part of the initiative. The Iowa bureau of CTE is also working on a statewide communications plan, which they developed as part of their work on the grant, Strategies to Attract Students to High-quality CTE, with the help of Advance CTE staff.
While Dennis is certainly not a new member of Advance CTE, we are so excited to welcome Dennis to this new role leading CTE in Iowa!