Leadership Los Alamos graduates class, prepares next cohort

Leadership Los Alamos ended its 2025-26 year with a graduation photo at Pajarito Mountain Ski Area, marking another round of residents and workers trained to step into local civic life. The program’s latest class reflected the county’s future leadership bench as much as a ceremony, with monthly sessions built around the institutions and issues that shape Los Alamos County.

The year-long curriculum started with an orientation and moved through classes on culture, environment, health and safety, government, community organizations, economic development, and youth and education. That mix gave participants a working view of how county life fits together, from public safety and schools to nonprofits and the local economy. Leadership Los Alamos describes the program as a chance for people who live or work in the county to broaden their understanding of the community and strengthen their leadership skills.

Chair Jasmine Stephens said the class showed patience, understanding, and a willingness to stay flexible through the year, capturing that attitude with the group motto “PIVOT!” The phrasing fit a program that asks participants to move across sectors and learn how decisions in one area can affect another, especially in a small county where volunteers, board members, and public employees often overlap.

Police Chief Dino Sgambellone, the 2026 guest speaker and Alumni Award recipient, tied that leadership training to public service that lasts beyond a single term or class year. Sgambellone has served as Los Alamos police chief since 2013, after becoming a police officer in Mansfield, Ohio, in 1991. Los Alamos County says the police department earned CALEA accreditation under his leadership and that the county has seen some of the lowest crime rates in its history.

His remarks also pointed to Safety Town, the child safety program he helped spur in 2015. County records say more than 800 children have participated since it began, and the 2025 session ran June 2-6 at Barranca Elementary School. The program’s reach underscores how leadership here is measured in concrete community systems, not only in titles.

The next class is already taking shape. Leadership Los Alamos extended the application deadline for the 2026-27 program year to July 31, with sessions scheduled from August 2026 through April 2027. The program’s local requirement, that applicants live or work in Los Alamos County, keeps it rooted in the same civic and professional circles it aims to widen. A previous graduation at the Pajarito Ski Area Lodge in 2012 sent 27 participants into the community after a similarly broad curriculum, showing how long the program has served as a pipeline for county leadership.