Tic Long

In a world where individuals are often less important than economic success, it is unusual to find a leader like Tic Long who can effectively build the bottom line while helping the individuals around him to achieve personal and professional success.

At the helm of Youth Specialties (YS), Tic Long’s rapport-building leadership skills allowed him to guide a small, family-owned business to be the industry leader in youth ministry training events and resources, serving more than 100,000 youth workers annually. Long joined YS as the company’s Business Manager and fourth full-time employee. During the early days at YS, it was necessary to be a “jack-of-all-trades” and Long worked on all aspects of the company, including the development of books and resources as well as the publication of two periodicals, The Wittenburg Door (Christian satire) and Youthworker Journal (professional journal for full-time youth pastors).

His giftedness at staff development coupled with a knack for creating entertaining and educational seminars and conferences allowed Long to focus on developing the company’s training events into the industry’s most-respected, diverse, and popular. Long guided the evolution of YS’s cornerstone event, the National Resource Seminar into the CORE and finally YS OneDay. Bringing together a diverse team of youth ministry’s leading communicators and thinkers, Long’s vision moved the event from one that simply taught youth workers how to utilize resources and implement ideas into a training program that professional youth workers relied on to develop the gifts and skills of tens of thousands volunteer youth workers annually. Long’s creativity and inclusive approach to leadership grew the National Youth Worker’s Convention (NYWC) to be the largest inter-denominational gathering of youth workers in the world. Through the NYWC, Long encouraged and supported young leaders, helping them launch and manage their careers as a colleague, friend and mentor. He also served as the emcee at the NYWC, where his engaging and often self-deprecating communication style endeared him to the audience who felt as if they were spending time with a friend rather than just attending a convention.

Around the office, Long modeled balancing life as a husband and father and as a successful businessman. His strategic approach to team-building allowed him to run a high-volume business with a lean, dedicated staff. Long possesses a unique ability to engage with his staff on a personal level without diminishing his role as a leader and supervisor. It is this ability that inspires deep loyalty amongst those who work for him, enabling the teams he leads to accomplish more than would seem possible.

Long’s energetic, entertaining communication style and his extensive subject matter expertise in: Building High Performance Teams; Creating Programs and Aligning Speakers for High Impact, Large-Scale Events; Product Development and Marketing; Creative Project Management; and Family and Student Ministry; make him a sought-after consultant and speaker. Long’s first book, based on his leadership seminars, will be released in fall 2010.