Although many things have come and gone over the years at Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, Inc. (EKCEP), Marsha Ison has remained. This year, after helping steer EKCEP successfully through numerous challenges for 24 years, Marsha's tenure with the agency will officially end when she retires on July 31.

Marsha has worked under four different executive directors, and three different federal enabling statutes since 1979, when she joined the Hazard-based agency that delivers workforce services in 23 eastern Kentucky counties. She has also worn what she calls a "gamut of hats," working in a variety of positions that placed her at the heart of nearly every administrative department in the agency.

She will retire as director of operations.

"I feel like a fixture on the wall here," Marsha chuckles. "When you feel like that, that's when you know it's time to leave. It is bittersweet, though. I'm happy, but at the same time, I'm also having mixed emotions."

The mixed emotions stem from leaving a job that has been near the center of her life for so many years, Marsha said. On the other hand, she admits she won't mind trading her long commute from Breathitt County and her busy work days for a life less structured.

"The main thing is that I won't need an agenda, and that's the good part," Marsha said with a smile. "I've worked under timeframes, guidelines, and deadlines all my life, so I'm looking forward to that. It's the beginning of a new phase of my life, and I think it's going to be pretty nice to leave some of those restrictions behind."

At EKCEP, Marsha leaves a legacy of commitment, loyalty, and achievements-marked by numerous good memories. Her term began in 1979 when she was hired as an Employment Opportunity Pilot Program (EOPP) counselor. At that time, she worked in Jackson with mothers participating in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program.

"We did a real intense five-week workshop on everything from resume writing and trying to get some work experience, to how to act on the job. It's similar to a lot of the curriculum we're using today," she said. "I've seen many success stories out of that program who are still working today at the same job. It was really rewarding, that part of my beginning with EKCEP."

Funding for that program ran out just two years later, and then-Executive Director Virgil Osborne invited Marsha to EKCEP's Central Office in Hazard to serve as personnel and training officer. She never left.

In the years that followed, Marsha's titles changed several times, but she always kept her personnel and human resources responsibilities. Along the way, she also served as Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) officer, and worked to manage EKCEP's contracts with outside agencies that deliver workforce-related services.

One of the largest changes in Marsha's long career came in 1993 when she became administrator of EKCEP's Youth Programs in the region.

"I really liked that time period," she said. "I felt like I really added to the Youth Program, and brought it along. That was an extremely rewarding period for me."

From 1995 to the present, Marsha kept moving upward, first as field operations manager, then as administrative assistant, where she worked directly with the executive director in developing, implementing, and administrating programmatic activities throughout EKCEP's 23 counties, and finally as director of operations, a position in which she, "dabbles in a little bit of everything.

"I am responsible to make sure everything is running in the whole organization and report back to my executive director," she said.

It is impossible for Marsha to discuss her many positions in the agency without also bringing up her memories of numerous achievements and challenges EKCEP has seen on its way to the national recognition the agency has enjoyed over the past few years.

Marsha said one of the greatest challenges EKCEP faced during her tenure was the changing of the agency's federal enabling statute from the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) to the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA). That change required an intensive effort to nurture the partnerships between EKCEP and more than a dozen state and federal agencies that represent the concepts of cooperation and collocation behind EKCEP's five JobSight one-stop workforce centers in eastern Kentucky. At those centers, people and employers have access to each of those job training and retraining, and employer services all under one roof.

"Our services since the WIA are even greater because they accommodate not only job seekers but employers as well," Marsha said. "A lot of hard work was necessary to make those changes and see that vision through.

"But our staff here at EKCEP has a mission to provide the best services possible to job seekers and employers," she added, "and I think everyone is working as hard as they can to achieve that mission."

Marsha said those top-notch efforts have resulted in some of the agency's greatest achievements. In recent years, EKCEP's programs and services have been publicly recognized as examples of excellence and innovation by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), and The Wall Street Journal. In addition to that national recognition, EKCEP programs, staff, and past WIA program participants won 11 statewide WIA Awards in 2001-03.

It is in the winners of those WIA Awards that Marsha said she views some of her proudest moments as an EKCEP employee.
"It's very moving when I see participants being rewarded for becoming successful people," she said. "I am very proud when I see them stand up and tell how their lives have been changed through our services.

"Being just a little part of that-out of everything I've done-is probably one of my proudest moments," Marsha added. "It's really rewarding to see these people achieve things they didn't even know were possible."

Marsha's list of personal achievements during her tenure at EKCEP is also long. As part of her career-long work in personnel operations, she developed the agency's complete personnel and human resources system. She also developed the initial WIA Year-Round Youth Program curriculum that dictated how the agency's services were delivered to in-school and out-of-school youth and young adults.

In 1992, Marsha planned and organized a Career Day for approximately 5,000 young people that featured appearances and motivational speeches by former UK Men's Basketball Coach Rick Pitino and former UK basketball players. In 1997, Marsha became EKCEP's first and only administrator thus far to do a presentation at the eight-state Southeastern Employment and Training Association (SETA) conference in Knoxville, Tenn.

Marsha considers the complete reorganization of EKCEP's Management Information System in 2002 as both a large accomplishment and challenge. Marsha oversaw sweeping changes to the agency's data-entry and performance procedures, and helped create a new on-line paperless records system that will soon go live. The new system will be the basis of all WIA case management across EKCEP's 23-county area, and will help save the agency countless thousands of dollars in paper and copying costs.

"I think I've been able to do all of this because I'm truly committed to doing my very best at anything I've been assigned," Marsha said. "I'm not the smartest person here, but I do give it everything I've got and I've always tried to do that."

Her professional accomplishments are many, but Marsha gives ample credit to EKCEP's staff in those victories. Marsha also gives plenty of credit to EKCEP Executive Director Mable Duke, who she said, "really is why EKCEP is where it's at today.

"Her vision and leadership have put EKCEP on the map," Marsha said of Duke.

"This isn't about me, it's about the agency," Marsha continued. "I've worked with a great team, and by no means have I accomplished these things by myself. We have a great group of people working together getting things accomplished, and I've just been a part of it."

While she does not mind waxing nostalgic on those accomplishments and her years with EKCEP, Marsha is not ready to coast through the finish line yet. There will be plenty of opportunities after July 31 to travel and spend even more quality time with her husband-Donald-their three children and nine grandchildren, she said. Marsha said she also plans to remain active in numerous capacities at the Hampton United Methodist Church in Jackson, and to possibly volunteer at local hospitals and nursing homes.

But it will be business as usual for Marsha until the clock strikes 4 p.m. on July 31. She plans to keep on working as hard for EKCEP as she did the first day she began working for the agency 24 years ago. Some things truly remain the same.

"I'm trying not to dwell on my retirement because I've got a lot to do before I leave, and there's a lot I still want to accomplish," Marsha said. "But I know it's coming, and even though I'm leaving a great agency, it'll be the beginning of a new phase of my life that I'm really looking forward to."