Many of you may already know Frank Balogh, PMP since he has served PMI since the early 2000s. For those who do not, let me introduce you to our Mentoring Program Director, the June Volunteer of the Month.

Frank’s journey started when the chapter developed and facilitated our PMP boot camp, and these materials were part of the foundation of what we know of as the Study Group today. From the beginning, he was a volunteer PMP test prep instructor, academic outreach resource, and presenter on project management trends and professional development. His passion was mentoring and sharing his knowledge.

His volunteer journey initially began by accident – “I was at a company where no manager was a PMP, and a new CTO came in and asked, “why do we have all these IT PMs who are not certified?”. Suddenly, I was quite popular. My manager at the time told me that I had a knack for presentations and mentoring and the PMI chapter had opportunities to grow this skill.”
Over the years, he has been a presenter on PM topics, especially migrating one’s skills to non-traditional roles and adopting Agile and Agile at Scale practices and thinking. Frank Balogh has also worked with universities whose engineering students had capstone PM projects that needed advice from a practitioner. And he was one of the initial mentors in the San Francisco PMI chapter.When asked what has been rewarding about your volunteer service, he responded, “it’s been mostly to see people who could not initially see a path forward to their goals light up when they use something I’ve suggested, and then they can sort out a solution themselves.”
Frank Balogh’s word of advice for new volunteers. “Don’t be concerned about being perfect or an expert. Use the volunteer experience to learn and expand your knowledge.”On a personal level, he likes cruises where he can have a chance to dress up and tie a bowtie. There is no driving or flying involved—his proudest moment “was when he finished his first sprint triathlon. For years I had seen people do this and thought it was something I could never do myself, and I broke down and cried in joy and wonderment after it was over.”
An interesting bit is that he took ballet lessons. I had a traditional fencing coach in college who determined that we were not supple enough, so they sent us to classes. Years later, I joined her when my 5-year-old daughter came home from school and demonstrated a few ballet steps. Her immediate reaction was, “Daddies aren’t supposed to know these things!”

I recently reviewed my LinkedIn Profile and noticed that my PMP credential there was expired. This issue was concerning because I didn’t want anyone to think I had let it lapse. I work hard to ensure that I have enough PDUs to renew each year, as all of us do, and I want it to show on my LinkedIn Profile. I soon realized that I hadn’t updated that entry since Credly acquired Acclaim. If you are unaware of PMI’s digital badge program, you can click on the link and read about it. A quick summary is that Credly, a digital credential network, manages the program. They allow you to share your digital certificate on social media, email, and websites. Embedding the credential this way into your LinkedIn profile will enable it to be automatically updated by PMI and Credly when renewed. The issue I had is my entry was from Acclaim and didn’t update. When I checked Credly, it was showing expired as well. They had not received my renewal info from PMI. I was able to email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. support, and they fixed it the next day. I updated my profile with the link to Credly, and everything is now up to date. If you’re not using the digital badge program, you should. It’s free as part of your membership and lets others know about the certification you worked so hard to obtain.

The chapter is still accepting nominations for the upcoming board election this year. If you or someone you know is interested, please fill out a nomination form here, and the election committee will reach out to you.

We have a lot of events on the calendar and some great collaborations that will be announced soon for the fall.

If you haven’t attended a PMI Chapter Xchange event, you should sign up for the one next Friday. The topic is Project Management for Supply Chain Management, and one of our members will be a panelist this month. It’s a timely topic and something that is affecting all projects.

If you have any questions or suggestions for the board, you can contact us via the Contact Us Form on the website or email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Heather Cardosi shared that "responsibility and acceptance should be considered by everyone and we should embrace our differences. It doesn't matter what race, creed, or ethic background you are, what matters is that you are not hurting others. The story of your world is what you make it, dont be a douche. We make our story, we decide, we put forth that perception out to the universe. The world is the way it is because we put it there, people always complain that this is not the way the world works but we make the world. We need to put out the effort to make if better or the way we want the world to work."

Heather's project management work supports a satelite heathcare for kidney diallis to provide better health and education so they do not get to to the medical state of needing diallis. She is an infrastructure group manager who supports the programs using a hybrid waterfall approach to shift the mindset to new ways and doing things.

Her passion is to work on envionomental issues, perhaps with a non-profit to repair the damage caused by not using sustainable practices. She has a GPM-b (Certified Green Project Manager – Level B) whidh is the foundational, knowledge-based sustainability certification that supports the commitment of those in project management to maximize sustainability within the project lifecycle, to improve the construct and delivery of goods and services produced as project deliverables, and to use measurable standards to consider and account for social, environmental, and economic impacts in projects.

Learning green project management basics and how you can apply it to any projects by not using the key points like impact should be the measure, money should not be the key metric. Profit might be less but the impacts would be thinking longterm for a better way of life like not letting our cell phones ending up in a landfill. This mindset can be applied to any project.

Heather shared that "even when you fail, you are not a failure until you stop tring." As a kids hockey coach she teaches that we are here to have fun not to win we are here to have fun and if you fall down, get back up. You are not trying hard enough." This is a good lesson for all of us.

The ASU PM Network is hosting our 3rd annual Level Up! Project Management Summit on Wednesday September 28, 2022. This year’s summit will be held in a live virtual format via Zoom with moderated Q&A, hosted on the Aventri platform. This event will bring together faculty, staff, students, and the PM Network community who are interested in learning how to Level Up! their skills and careers as well as explore issues and trends related to the profession.

The 2021 ASU PM Summit had nearly 3k registrants.  Attendees from 58 countries and 40 of states joined the online event. This conference is open to professional practitioners from across many industries that are working in Project Management or related roles who are interested in learning how to Level Up! their skills and careers as well as explore issues and trends related to the profession. As a speaker, you will share your professional and personal perspective on selected topics with our community members. 

Each session is 40-45 minutes in length with 15-20 minutes reserved at the end for Q&A, which will be facilitated by one of our conference committee members or volunteers. Our conference coordinators will ensure a smooth experience for speakers and attendees.

Questions? Please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.