This past weekend I drove to Atlanta to visit with a legend, Joe Harless.

My purpose was to video tape Joe responding to the 6 questions (covered in a prior post) as the first of the HPT Practitioner Podcast Series for 2008. Look for it at HPT Connections soon.

Sorry about the “tinny” audio quality my handheld digital camera captured – we were in a big room – and I hadn’t thought about that!

From: http://www.dougmead.com/Roots.htm (slightly edited)…

Dr. Joe Harless – “The world’s first and foremost leader in the field of Performance Technology. Joe Harless, a member of the prestigious Human Resources Development Hall of Fame, designed and developed human performance workshops that have revolutionized business results.

Often referred to as the “trainers trainer,” Joe Harless has received the coveted Member for Life award from the National Society for Performance and Instruction (now the International Society for Performance Improvement).

For more than 30 years Joe Harless headed the Harless Performance Guild, a network of organizations and consultants who use his concepts and procedures to help business, industry, and the military improve the performance of their employees. He is generally recognized as one of the founders of the relatively new field of Human Performance Technology.

Joe is the author of the acclaimed Accomplishment Based Development Systems (ABCD), that has been installed in the educational departments of numerous organizations in the U.S. and Canada. The ABCD System is widely recognized as state-of-the-art in instructional development.

His book, the Peak Performance System, is a massive work that provided detailed job guidelines for analysis, design, and development of a wide range of interventions to improve people performance.

His latest book is “The Eden Conspiracy” is the first of a series of commentaries on societal problems and needs. This book presents methodologies to cause dramatic improvement in your children’s schooling. a common-sense approach for local educational reform by one of the nation’s leading experts in human development. The Eden Conspiracy is the first of a series of commentaries on societal problems and needs.

Joe has received the Gilbert Distinguished Professional Achievement award from the International Society for Performance Improvement in 1996, and was elected to the Human Resources Development Hall of Fame in 1998. Recently retired from active management of his company, Joe now devotes his time to reflection and research.

*************************************

Joe has been consulting with his local Chamber of Commerce to apply HPT to controlled development/growth of his home county in Georgia – the subject of his next book.

My thanks to Joe and his lovely wife, Carol, a renown sculpter whose work is everywhere in their beautiful home! I had a wonderful visit – and would hope to go back and capture more video of this legend in ISPI and HPT circles!

# # #