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 Comments by Harvey Lloyd
Vice President, The LEAD Center, Ltd.
Our President, Jeanne Knieriemen, is the most amazing person I have ever met, and meet we did seven years ago. I was leaving a company and determining what to do with myself having done twenty years in industrial and commercial construction.  Jeanne called and said she was starting a school for special education students. She asked for business help. Education is not my strong suit, but after talking to Jeanne and her peers, it was very apparent that the need for quality services for disabled students existed. One thing led to another and, before I knew it, we had a school on the corner of North Main Street in Hopewell.
We started The LEAD Center, Ltd. (TLC) with twelve promising students from various localities. After the first few years, we began serving students from other central Virginia cities and counties. Having worked in construction for most of my life, I quickly learned that the human services industry was a totally different animal. I wasn’t building widgets - I was now building students. Jeanne suffered through my learning curve of adapting business principals in a new way to the educational environment. After three years, I began to see what Jeanne had been saying all along. The children at The LEAD Center, Ltd. are not good students doing bad things, but rather disabled students acting naturally. From this point on, the goals of the TLC became very clear to me.
Every student who crosses our path deserves the best available resources to be successful in their endeavors. This philosophy, and the heart that Jeanne puts to everything she does for the school, is enough to take on the task of creating an environment that fosters success for at-risk youth.
The TLC goal is to be the best we can be for the customers we serve and provide a lasting experience for each student that enrolls. When you join our team, either as a parent, student, staff member, special education teacher, case worker, or principal, our commitment to the student is always at the top. From individualizing and differentiating instruction for each child, to the focus on how we hire staff, TLC reinforces every aspect of student success. We want to be the organization, and the people, known for working the hardest on each of our student’s progress.
Harvey F. Lloyd |
