Susie Vanderlip – CPAE Award Winner

Each year the National Speakers Association honors five of its members with the coveted CPAE Award (Council of Peers Award for Excellence). There are only 120 living members who have the CPAE designation. The highlight of the formal dinner on the last night of the conference was the CPAE Awards. I tracked down one of these distinguished speakers after the banquet to find out how it feels to win an Award like this. Susie Vanderlip is a Youth and Family Issues expert from Orange County, California. She created quite a stir when she came onstage to accept her Award in character as a gang member from her schools talk. She transformed before our eyes into the foxy lady she is in real life, resplendent in evening gown and jewelry. Quite a transformation. Susie's latest book 52 Ways to Protect Your Teen presents the realities with which teens across all socio-economic groups are confronted. She addresses drug and alcohol abuse, rape, violence, depression and self-mutilation issues. She wrote the book based on lengthy one-on-one conversations with 25,000 individual teens following her LEGACY OF HOPE® assemblies at their schools and youth conferences. Since 1991, she has presented to one million teens and adults in 47 states and Canada. On Thursday evening her NSA peer's recognized her achievements. Click on the podcast icon below to hear Susie's reaction to the CPAE Award, recorded a few short minutes after the event ended.