D Eirdre Magee remembers the first time she met her current friend Sue Pressman 18 years ago. The two experts faced each other on opposing sides of an intensive negotiation process.
Magee, a human resources specialist, was looking for a federal contract for a small private industrial company that she represented. Pressman, a career advisor from Washington, DC, and president of the American Counseling Association from July 1, negotiated the contract on behalf of a federal agency. Both women had been instructed to negotiate a deal that would maximize the bottom line of the organization they represented.
Magee entered this first meeting with strict instructions from her boss, the contract negotiator, whom he called “Dr. Sue. "But, Magee recalls, instead of plunging directly into negotiations, Pressman introduced himself and asked if it was okay to chat and get to know each other first.
“I met her in a very competitive situation. Sue came to see her bosses right after the meeting, ”says Magee. "The first hour we talked gave her great confidence in what we would do in the future."
This first conversation turned the tone of the negotiations, says Magee. For a short while, the two women went back and forth between their superiors, who both felt they weren't getting enough out of the business. They finally called a meeting of all parties, hoping to see eye to eye.
"Then you [the bosses] had to listen and Sue drove," says Magee. "She is an excellent facilitator and gets the best out of people. … Her preference is to get everyone's feedback and try to understand people's resistance to things and the emotions associated with them."
Pressman could artfully explain why Magee's company was not eligible to receive a top dollar for the contract: Although the seller had successfully signed contracts with large private companies in the past, this was not the case. I have not had much experience with government work in the past.
The situation led to a win-win situation, says Magee. The company she represented ultimately won the job, even if not the full amount her boss wanted. However, by securing the contract, the company was able to draw up a track record that enabled it to win other offers, including from the federal departments for trade and finance.
"Sue was able to create and create trust and transform a competitive situation into a collaborative one," says Magee. “Both customers were better off and got a job that met their requirements. I am very proud of that. "
This first interaction between Pressman and Magee in a potentially controversial environment instead became a friendship that has remained steadfast over the years. Magee describes Pressman as a caring and genuine relationship builder who happens to have a great sense of humor and a knack for getting the best out of people.
"She knows who she is and what she is about, and everyone else," says Magee. "There is no hidden agenda. What you see from Sue Pressman you get."
Pressman becomes 69th President of ACA this month and succeeds Heather Trepal. S. Kent Butler, who was elected 70th President of the Association by ACA members earlier this year, will take on the role of President-elect as Pressman holds her one-year term as President.
Career Path
Like many professional advisors, Pressman took a detour into his job. Growing up with a father who was deaf in one ear sparked Pressman's interest in becoming an audiologist. She completed a basic course in speech pathology and began – and almost completed – a diploma course in audiology.
However, Pressman's life took a different turn when she met her future husband and moved to the Washington metropolitan area. She started working on the campus of Gallaudet University, an organization dedicated to educating deaf and hard of hearing people. Out of curiosity, Pressman decided to take a single class entitled Introductory Careers in Gallaudet's Graduate Advisory Program. Gerald Corey's textbook Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy was the required reading for the course.
Pressman says that after this one class she “fell in love” with the program and eventually enrolled in rehabilitation counseling. Working and studying in Gallaudet also led her to learn American Sign Language (ASL) and speak fluently.
As a PhD student, Pressman worked as a summer job coordinator at the university's counseling and placement center, an office that offered careers and job placement advice to students as well as mental health services. During her first summer there, she developed a relationship with Yellowstone National Park, which recruited and hired 20 Gallaudet students to work in the state-run park for the summer. During Pressman's second summer at the counseling and placement center, the connection to Yosemite National Park was expanded, and Pressman traveled to both parks to provide training on how to integrate deaf people into the park's staff.
It was a win-win situation, Pressman says. Visitors and staff at the two parks could see the benefits of employing and working with deaf workers while the students gained work experience and at the same time had a cohort of peers with whom they could connect when they were not working.
Pressman's summer success at the Gallaudet counseling and placement center led to full-time employment and career counseling at the center after completing a Masters in Rehabilitation Counseling.
This was in the 1980s when a movement to decouple mental health and career counseling was gaining momentum on university campuses in the United States. Pressman was asked to work on a Gallaudet-led committee to set up an on-campus career center separate from the school's psychiatric counseling center. When the committee was ready to present its results to the university's board of trustees, the dean asked the Pressman School to give the presentation – in both spoken English and ASL. She took up the challenge and the trustees accepted the proposal to set up a career center in Gallaudet. Ultimately, Pressman was appointed director.
She worked at Gallaudet for another 10 years, obtaining career counseling certificates in this way and securing her license as a professional advisor as soon as the license was established and offered in Washington, DC.
After Pressman left Gallaudet, he worked as an ASL interpreter – also at ACA conferences – and did his doctorate in consultant training. From there, she founded her career consulting business and switched to contract work for government agencies.
For decades, Pressman has worked with federal agencies, including intelligence agencies, to create and implement career development, assessment, and training programs for their employees. Part of her job was to develop an internal certification program that prompted employees to learn about communication development, planning and evaluation, as well as communication styles and awareness of disabilities. Magee led the project and hired Pressman to create the program to improve employee retention for a particular department within a top secret agency. Pressman's certification program was so well received that the agency ultimately made it available to all employees, and it ran for 10 years, Magee says.
Pressman strives to do her best not only for the organizations she works for, but also for the people in those organizations, says Magee, who Pressman describes as adaptable and democratic.
"In the government it is usually" do as I want "and that is not Sue at all," says Magee. “Although she is a creative person and, in my opinion, a visionary, authoritarian is not a style that she is most inclined to. It is cooperative and examines [focuses on] the potential of people. "
Over the decades, Pressman has introduced, trained and advised countless federal employees in various positions throughout the pecking order. She enjoys negotiating, presenting herself in boardrooms, creating and analyzing reports, and speaking to people from across the spectrum.
"I was in the trenches," Pressman says with a giggle. This will come in handy when she takes over from ACA, an organization with more than 50,000 members around the world.
Right place, right time
Given her decades of experience in running her own business, managing budgets, and facilitating meetings, Pressman's friends and colleagues believe that she is well placed to lead ACA through a challenging time as the world struggles to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and related economy downturn and racial injustice issues.
Karol Taylor, a long-time friend of Pressman and another career counselor, said she nominated Pressman for the ACA presidency because of her business acumen and wealth of experience. Pressman also knows the pros and cons of ACA after serving two terms in the ACA Governing Council and as president of an ACA division, the National Employment Counseling Association (NECA).
"Sue appears to be the perfect person to guide us through this era with a unique vision, approach and [the skills to know] how to move forward," said Taylor, an ACA member and former president of both the Maryland Counseling Association and the Maryland Career Development Association. "She has a vision for ACA and an idea of where to go during this time, and she will negotiate it in a way that helps people. She understands how things have to be done and brings her skills to the organization in an effective and valuable way. "
Taylor has worked for Pressman on several contracts and says she "has a knack for finding the right people for the right fit."
“It can recognize your skills and bring you to the right place where you can add value. … Sue regularly says to me: "There is nobody who can do this better than you." This is very positive and makes me work more with her, "says Taylor." She is nice, but she is not hinted at. It is not a weakling. She has a big heart and would do anything for you, and in return she expects you to present yourself in a way that works well for her. She is very professional and expects you and others to do the same. "
Michael Lazarchick, a licensed professional and career counselor in New Jersey, worked closely with Pressman in NECA. He believes that Pressman's flexibility, down-to-earth style and collaborative focus are tailored to the current circumstances.
“She has the skills that are currently needed. I don't know what the future holds, but I'm excited about the contributions Sue will make. She is such a good person. She is smart, very capable, very experienced and really cares about others, ”says Lazarchick, an ACA member and former president of NECA who has known Pressman for 20 years. "As the ACA president, we can send her to anyone or anyone, and she will be able to speak easily [with them]. She knows what it is like to work with people who end up at the totem pole and with people who are like second class citizens, but she also has experience dealing with hot shots, those at the top and people in government. She is fluid and able [of working] with everyone in between. "
"This is the right time to have a practitioner out there [as ACA president] who can speak to local people because with COVID we are redesigning the way we do business "-19," says Lazarchick. "Everything changes. This [pandemic] is here and we have to deal with it and I really like the idea that we [as counselors] have a president who will be out there and able to deal with many changes . "
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(from right to left) Incoming ACA President Sue Pressman is pictured with the National Employment Counseling Association (NECA) President, Sujata Ives, and new President Carolyn Greer. Photo courtesy of Sue Pressman.
The coming year
Pressman has several topics that she would like to focus on as ACA president, including enriching ACA's international presence and “broadening the voice of practitioners” within the association.
Pressman and Heather Trepal, ACA's immediate past president, will work together in a task force next year to support and improve the work of the International Committee of ACA. Pressman says she wants to extend the reach and impact of ACA to continents and countries where the association already has partnerships.
"I would like to see ACA have a greater international presence," says Pressman. “I feel we have such an amazing, talented membership of counseling practitioners, counselor educators, and lots of people from sister disciplines who join us from other areas. … I think we could expand our talent pool to the rest of the world, which is under-served in terms of mental health and career development. My vision is really to examine how we can make the rest of the world benefit from our offer. "
As proud practitioners, Pressman also wants to promote practitioners' participation in the association. She hopes to highlight the perspectives of consultants who work as practitioners in private practices, community facilities, and other non-academic settings.
"We need to incorporate and broaden the skills and capabilities of advising Capitol Hill and state legislators, but also to broaden the knowledge of the professional practitioner," she says. “Consulting is a wide field. It is not just one-sided. It has many dimensions and I want to convey that to people. The point is that we all speak and look at the intersection instead of on grass and fragmentation. We all have to come together to strengthen the profession, as opposed to this [faction] that goes in this direction and this that goes in that direction. "
Above all, Pressman hopes that ACA members will see her as a collaborative and responsive leader. "It's not always about work and what you produce, but about who you are and how you deal with people," she says.
"From the beginning I always tried to help people feel involved," Pressman continues. “As a manager, it takes a lot of courage to stand up and make yourself vulnerable. I'm not afraid of it and [I] try to create open and inclusive environments. … I want [ACA’s] the entire team to be successful, not just me. I want to put our heads together and use our collective ideas to get better. Together we are stronger than we are individually. "
Everyone in the family
Pressman lives in Arlington, Virginia with her husband Allan Dosik, an optometrist who practices in Northern Virginia. Her daughter Lianna Dosik is a professional singer-songwriter who lives and performs in California under the stage name Lele Rose. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Lianna was back in Virginia with her parents but continues to make music and appear on social media and other online platforms (see more of her work on lelerose.com).
Family is a very important part of Pressman's life, and ACA is intertwined with it, she says. Lianna grew up with ACA conferences and even performed at the opening party for participants in the ACA Conference & Expo 2014 in Hawaii.
When Lianna was seriously injured in a surfing accident a few years ago, Pressman missed a meeting of the ACA government council while traveling to her daughter. The family received an overwhelming amount of support and congratulations from ACA friends and colleagues when Lianna recovered, Pressman recalls.
"ACA is part of us, part of my family," says Pressman. "My family and my career were very important to me and they are interwoven. I can do what I do because I have a really supportive family. I am really happy."
She is also lucky to have supportive colleagues in the consulting profession. Pressman did not want to be nominated for ACA's presidency, so she was surprised when she received a call out of the blue from leaders of the southern region of ACA asking if she would accept her nomination. Pressman finally won the election through an association-wide vote of the members in 2019.
"It's like a fairy tale," she says. "It was not a goal [being ACA president]but it is a dream come true."
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Meet Sue Pressman, 69th President of ACA
Licensed professional advisor, nationally certified advisor, nationally certified career advisor, master career advisor, coach certified by the board, trainer for global career development sponsors
Lives in Arlington, Virginia, where she is president and CEO of Pressman Consulting, a provider of personnel services that specialize in career management and consulting, strategic personnel planning and development, training, mentoring, disability programs, and organizational development.
Former President of the National Employment Counseling Association, a division of the American Counseling Association; also served on the ACA government council for six years
Chairman of the ACA Counselors Compensation Task Force
Has a Ph.D. in consultancy training from Virginia Tech, a master in rehabilitation counseling from Gallaudet University and a bachelor's degree in education and language pathology from the University of Florida
is fluent in American Sign Language (ASL) and is a founding member of the non-profit organization Deaf & Hard of Hearing in Government
When she is not working, she likes to cook, work in her garden and sew
Fun Facts: The first ACA Conference & Expo for which Pressman supplied sign language interpreting was in Reno, Nevada in 1991 – and it still has the t-shirt from that conference! She no longer interprets much herself, but continues to coordinate the ASL interpreting services for ACA conferences
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Bethany Bray is a senior writer and social media coordinator for Counseling Today. Contact them at [email protected].
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