Professional Development

Our Goal

To provide affordable personal and professional development opportunities to Washington women.

Through our work, we strive to earn statewide recognition as the premier group for networking and professional growth and support for state-employed women.

What We Do

We organize professional development workshops and training as well as networking opportunities for our membership meetings and events. Past educational sessions include resume writing and interviewing, leadership seminars, diversity training and more. Subcommittee members contribute up to three hours monthly.

Activities include:

Working with the Conference Subcommittee to plan ICSEW’s Professional Development Conference, an annual event dedicated to personal and professional development.
Recruiting and screening speakers for our general membership meetings as well as our Professional Development Conference. Speakers are experts in their fields.
Facilitating networking sessions at each general membership meeting.
Collaborating with the Partnerships Subcommittee to provide additional training for our members outside of the state system.

Professional Development Members

Professional Development Co-chair | Janet McIntosh

Department of Natural Resources
janet.mcintosh@dnr.wa.gov

Prior to state service, Janet McIntosh spent 15 years in the scuba diving industry as a leader, showing women and girls that they had a place as dive professionals. This goal has continued at her career in state service that began in 2018 at DNR. Her first role was in working on the Geoduck Dive Team as a compliance diver and team lead. Last fall, she took a developmental assignment at the Legislative Coordinator for the 2023 session. In May of this year, she shifted gears joined the Safety Office focusing on investigations and inspections.

Janet learned about ICSEW through DNR’s internal Women’s Employee Resource Group in 2019 and began attending meetings. She became an ICSEW member in 2021 and joined the board in 2022 . She served first as executive co-secretary and is now the professional development co-chair.

Professional Development Co-chair | Connie Becker

Office of Administrative Hearings
connie.becker@oah.wa.gov

Connie Becker has been a Legal Administrative Manager at the Office of Administrative Hearings since August 2019 and an ICSEW member since 2021. Prior to state service, she worked as an HR director at Taholah School District and as a Legal Administrator and Paralegal in private legal practices in Seattle and Fort Lauderdale, Fl. Connie earned a Bachelor of Arts in German from Western Washington University, a Paralegal Certificate from Highline Community College, and an MBA and Master’s Certificate in HR Management from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Subcommittee Members

Jennifer Ross, Department of Health

Kim Anderson, Department of Health

Lyn Peters, Washington State Department of Financial Institutions

Tessa Harvey, Department of Health

Speak at an ICSEW Event

We are always looking for dynamic speakers to present at our general membership meetings as well as our Professional Development Conference. Through our speakers we want to equip and empower our members with important tools for career advancement. It also gives state employees and members of the public the opportunity to engage with ICSEW.

We welcome all experts in personal and professional development to apply, regardless of where you work. ICSEW’s values: leadership, integrity, fostering growth, empowerment, wellbeing and advocacy.

We are looking for speakers who can present on topics related to current and historical social inequities, their intersectionalities and action steps we can all take to remove barriers. We have particular interest in speakers who can bring:

Lived experiences with intersectionality (race, age, gender, disability, veterans, immigrants, learning diversities, sexual orientation, +).
Historical context/perspective on the women’s movement and rights.
Experience in their associations with Washington State Business Resource Groups.
Knowledge of what it means to be an ally
Awareness of what privilege means, how impacts all sectors of society and how to move forward with dismantling systemic inequities

Please email us at icsew@ofm.wa.gov if you are interested in speaking or if you would like to recommend a speaker.

Subcommittees

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