Debbie Trueblood, the recently appointed CEO of NIGP: The Institute for Public Procurement, was one of eight attendees we filmed at the American Society for Public Administration’s annual conference in Hollywood, California between March 20 and March 24th.  This is the fifth in a series that appears on Thursdays in this space.

Trueblood encourages professionals in the realm of procurement to shift from viewing their careers as accidental to intentional choices. As she says, “None of us grew up saying “Mom, Dad, I want to be a procurement professional when I grow up.”

“So,” she adds, “rather than saying ‘I fell into this profession ten years ago,’ we are trying instead to say ‘I discovered this great career 10 years ago and I choose it every day.’””

As she says, “One of the important reasons we are focusing so much on this in the public procurement space is because we are really trying to focus on bringing in that next generation of public procurement professionals.”

[Note: The previous four “VOICES FROM ASPA” videos are available at the bottom of this page.]