NASW Pioneers Biography Index

Sandra J. McCormick, MSSW, MHA, FACHE, has been an outstanding social worker through a long career of more than 30 years. Her service has included the Child Welfare, Juvenile Justice, and Health Care fields of practice. Early in her career, she was challenged to become a manager. Wisely, she sought added specialized education, earning a second professional degree in Health Care Administration. Since completing that training, she has become a model of the balanced social work manager focused on both the productivity of her institution and the nurturing and development of her community. Thus, her clients/customers and her profession have benefited.

Ms. McCormick, through most of her career, worked to position social work services as being essential to all people who needed help with psychosocial problem-solving. She succeeded in doing this in Wisconsin and internationally through building partnerships and helping to make them work on behalf of people in need. Two examples in this area are: I) Building and managing the LaCrosse International Health Partnership which brought together volunteer health professionals from the United States with colleagues in three cities in Russia, one city in the Ukraine and one city in China to develop and provide facilities and services to people in need; and, 2) Providing leadership in developing regional community service programs that made allies of the public sector, the professional social work community, and the private business community, in the interest of larger community development goals. In addition to these major groundbreaking activities, she made it a matter of professional duty to build ongoing communication channels with the business community by serving as a leading official in three private companies and by maintaining membership in the Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary International, as well as the Rotary Club of LaCrosse.

The awards that she has received, the list of current Boards and Committees on which she serves and the list of professional affiliations present a picture of the depth of her commitment to the profession's place in the larger community and the acceptance of the embodiment of the profession that she has represented. That demonstration is an important contribution to understanding the esteem/self-esteem equation that is at the root of the image question that has and continues to concern the profession. She has pointed a way through her career.