We are pleased to welcome Mr. Mark Hamilton, Deputy Associate Superintendent, Career & Technical Education, Arizona Department of Education, to the State Director group.

Mark Hamilton is a 25 year veteran in Career Technical Education (CTE). He has served as both a classroom secondary and post-secondary faculty member, a CTSO advisor, a local district CTE administrator, a State Program Specialist, a State CTSO Director and now serves as the Arizona Department of Education, Deputy Associate Superintendent for Career and Technical Education. Mr. Hamilton also has at least 12 years’ experience in industry, during some of which he served as a local, state or national CTSO competitive event judge. Mark has served in professional organization leadership roles at the local, state and national levels for many years.

Hamilton has been recognized many times in Arizona; select awards include:

• The Arizona Association for Career and Technical Education’s 2010 Outstanding Post-Secondary Educator of the Year Award;
• The Arizona Agriculture Teachers’ Association‘s 2010 CTE Administrator of the Year Award;
• The Distinguished Service Award to an Administrator, 2002 from the Arizona Business Education Association;
• Arizona FFA Association’s FFA Administrator of the Year, 2001;
• Arizona FACS Ed’s Administrator of the Year, 2000;
• National Association of Trade and Industrial Education’s Ethel M. Smith Award, 1999;
• 1997 Vocational Administrator of the Year from the Arizona Vocational Education Association; and
• Arizona Policy Fellow, 1988 from the Arizona Vocational Education Association.

Hamilton had the opportunity to grow local CTE programs in a fast growing local district expanding from one to five comprehensive high schools and two to six junior high schools between 1994 and 2011. Notable CTE program components remain vital parts of those schools. Partnerships with local community colleges were built and programs of study including dual enrollment opportunities are offered to secondary students. Active CTSO programs are available among all of the programs at the high schools and opportunities are provided for the junior high school students. CTE Programs include a diversity of programs to meet student interests from Agriculture Education, Business and Marketing, Culinary Arts, Design and Merchandising, Engineering Sciences, Bio-Medical Sciences, Early Childhood and Teacher Preparation Programs, Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation Therapy, to Manufacturing, Cabinetmaking, Computer Repair, Graphic Arts, Theater Technology, Computer Programming, TV Production and Game Design, for examples.

Funding structures were developed to continue to support the local CTE programs and supplement the CTE opportunities for students. School based enterprises, work- based learning programs, industry partnerships and contextual learning engaged students where they used the CTE environment to learn both the technical and embedded academic skills to meet industry standards through their CTE program content. Active district advisory committees are essential to sustaining each of the twenty five various CTE programs offered within and across the district, out of the 71 programs and options offered statewide.

Mark remains passionate about workforce preparation, from its initiation to the resulting economic development in Arizona and each of the communities across the state.

When asked what he wishes to achieve in his role, Hamilton said he wants to “Create a service based state CTE educational leadership environment that will open opportunities for our students of every age to be as productive as they can become, to improve our GDP and our communities.”

Please wish Mark Hamilton a warm welcome. He can be reached at [email protected].

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 1st, 2012 at 2:34 pm and is filed under Advance CTE State Director, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.