Curtis Plott

Dr. Curtis Plott is one of the country's foremost experts on change and performance in the workplace.  An expert in both investment and consolidation opportunities in the $60 billion training and learning industry, Plott has spent the last two decades working with leading-edge companies in the United States and abroad whose investments in learning have made a difference in the bottom line.

Plott's 18 years at the helm of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) were paced by his pioneering recognition that workplace learning--although under-appreciated in most executive suites in the early 1980s--was in fact critical to the growth in productivity and competitiveness that our global economy demands.

Anticipating the profound change and growth in the training industry worldwide, Plott expanded ASTD's activities to include workplace-based research, policy representation, international membership, and significantly enhanced benchmarking and other services to corporations.  Seeing the rising trend toward outsourcing, he led the way to including the high growth training and learning companies in ASTD's activities.  At the same time, he oversaw ASTD's groundbreaking work in rethinking the role and competencies of in-company learning and performance specialists.

Under his visionary leadership, ASTD grew to an organization of 80,000 members representing more than 15,000 companies in 100 countries worldwide, with a broad grasp of the complementary roles of government, business and labor in workforce development, and with substantial relationships to government and industry leaders on every continent.

Plott was appointed president and CEO of ASTD in 1980 and became President emeritus in 1998.  Prior to his work with ASTD, he was director of employee relations for Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, and also served as Chief Executive Officer of the Illinois Education Association.  A graduate of Occidental College, with M.S. and Ed. D. degrees from the University of Southern California, Plott represented ASTD on the Council of Competitiveness and the Education Commission of the States, and currently serves as a member of the National Nuclear Accrediting Board and as a consultant to corporations and dot.com's selling in the corporate learning market.