John Sample

Dr. Sample began his career by helping adults and juveniles on probation or parole to adjust to community standards of law abiding citizenship. Strong values of fairness and justice coupled with a circuit judge for a father instilled the virtues of hard work, honesty and disciplined conduct.

His commitment to human resource development began in 1972 when he was appointed the Training Director for the Florida Division of Youth Services. From that time forward, he has combined a career in higher education with HRD consulting in business, government, and associations. Dr. Sample is an accomplished facilitator and trainer, and during his 30 year career in training and development, he has presented over 500 programs to more than 10,000 participants. Many of these programs were designed, developed, and implemented using an instructional systems approach to improving individual and team performance.

His strength is in designing and facilitating customized programs for supervisors, managers, and executives on such topics as communication, leadership, performance improvement and appraisal systems. He also conducts team building programs for executives and senior managers using the Team Management Systems suite of feedback instrumentation, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Personality Profiler.

One of his passions is writing and publishing about human resource management, training and development. John has authored over 50 journal articles, chapters in books and annuals. You may have read some of his articles on training liability in Performance & Instruction, Training, the ASTD InfoLine, and the Annual for Developing Human Resources. His most current publications explore the consequences of liability for negligent training and other legal topics impacting human resource development.

Dr. Sample is one of the foremost authorities on liability related to training and development in the USA today. He provides attorneys, directors of HRD programs, and risk management specialists with case preparation, analysis, depositions, and court testimony when requested. He is the author of the forthcoming book, The Legal Reference for Adult Educators, Human Resource Developers, and Instructional Designers (Krieger Publications).

His academic credentials include the Ph.D. in Adult Education (Florida State University), the MSM in Human Resource Management (St. Thomas University) and the B.S. in Criminology (FSU). He holds the SPHR (Senior Professional Human Resources) designation from the Society for Human Resource Management, and he is a Registered Organizational Development Practitioner (RODP).

Dr. Sample has taught graduate and undergraduate level courses in several colleges and universities, notably Florida International University (Adult Education/HRD), Florida State University (Public Administration and Adult Education), and Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (Labor Relations). He was the Director of the graduate program in Human Resources at St. Thomas University (Miami, FL) the Director of Professional Education and Development, Center for Professional Development, FSU. He recently retired as the program coordinator for the graduate program in Human Resource Development at Florida State University.