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Twenty-five community leaders from across the region recently completed the 2014 Gulf Coast Leadership Institute, the Gulf Coast Community Foundation has announced. The members of the group finished their final training session and celebrated graduation from the three-month leadership-develop- ment program in June, a news release says. "The aspiring and veteran leaders were guided through seven sessions of compre- hensive leadership training by faculty from the University of Georgia's nationally recog- nized J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership Development, the release adds. The diverse group of participants was selected earlier this year "from a large pool of applicants," the release notes. The Leadership Institute was developed and is funded by Gulf Coast Community Foundation. "Engaged leadership is the foundation of com- munity," said Teri A. Hansen, president and CEO of the Foundation, in the release. "Our graduates will take their new leadership skills and make our communities better places to live and work." The graduates of the 2014 Leadership Institute are as follows: Claudia Cardillo, former Vice President, Johnson & Johnson; Christina de Guia, psychiatrist; Tomas Dinverno, principal of Tuttle Elementary School in Sarasota; Elizabeth Fisher, president and CEO of Selah Freedom; Kristen Fisher, preschool direc- tor at Englewood United Methodist Church; Leslie Gnaegy, brand marketing manager for 25 GRADUATE FROM GULF COAST LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE Graduates of the 2014 Gulf Coast Leadership Institute mark completion of the program. Contributed photo Sarasota News Leader August 1, 2014 Page 87