Ken Soper, N.C.C., C.C.C.

Ken is a National Board of Certified Counselors National Certified Counselor (N.C.C.) and National Career Development Association Certified Career Counselor (C.C.C., 2018-present), one of just 800 people worldwide with both of these certifications.  He was a Master Career Counselor (M.C.C., 1995-2018, superseded by the C.C.C.), one of the first 50 world-wide to be recognized for his expertise and skills by the National Career Development Association, the premier professional association for career counseling and coaching.

Ken has been working in career coaching, counseling and work search training since 1979. He has worked with individuals ages 14-79 in a wide range of careers and industries such as Sales, Marketing, Operations, Finance, Accounting, Horticulture, Education, Ministry, Government, Human Resources, Logistics, Information Technology, Engineering, Healthcare, Maintenance, and Machine Trades just to name a few.

LifeSteward Group LLC is his consulting and coaching practice, and he has partnered with two outstanding organizations, the career management, coaching and leadership development firm, Ken Taber & Associates, and Lee Hecht Harrison, the Global Career Transition and Talent Management services firm.

Ken has consulted with individuals who previously worked for such firms as AT&T, Kellogg, Saint Mary’s Healthcare, Amway, and Meijer displaced by corporate re-engineering. For five years, he also worked as the Career & Job Search Coach for the Career Transitions program at the Area Agency on Aging of Western Michigan, Inc., where he served individuals 55+ years old who have been dislocated from their previous employment or who were under-employed.  This program was considered by many as one of the most successful and effective programs of its kind for two decades.

Ken also consulted on another initiative in the 2000’s begun by Hope Network originally funded by a multi-year $660,000 grant from the US Department of Labor’s Center for Faith and Community-Based Initiatives, the HopeWorks Project.  It linked the Michigan Works! resources and the faith-based organizations providing access to online job search assistance and career development services to individuals within their communities. HopeWorks performed a unique service by connecting technology, grass roots organizations and persons looking for jobs or employment skills.

In 2004 he co-founded EaRN Employment and Resource Network as a ministry to those in career and job transition equipping churches to do so in their local areas.  Learn more about EaRN at www.earn-network.org.

He previous served for more than a decade as the Career Services Officer at several Midwest colleges, including Indiana Wesleyan University (Indiana) and Wheaton College (Illinois), where he also taught career planning courses to both graduate and undergraduate students.  He’s continued teaching such students (1995-2012) through Spring Arbor University’s West Michigan Learning Sites and online including courses in career counseling (graduate level) as well as film/storytelling, management, and Biblical studies (undergraduate level) .

Ken is a graduate of Richard Bolles’ internationally acclaimed Life/Work Planning Workshop, and one of the career counselors from North America listed annually on Bolles’ eParachute website based on the all-time best-seller on job hunting and career changing, What Color Is Your Parachute?  He has also been trained in career management, work search and outplacement practice by other internationally recognized trainers and mentors—Dick Knowdell, Ralph Mattson, Dick Staub, Howard Figler, Debra Angel, Elizabeth Harney, and Daniel Porot.

Ken earned an Master of Arts degree from Ball State University (Indiana) in 1986 emphasizing Career Counseling and Human Resources, and a Master of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (Massachusetts) in 1978. His undergraduate degree in History/Geography and a Business minor is from Taylor University (Indiana).

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LifeSteward Group LLC collaborates with other consulting professionals on projects with world-class expertise and credentials providing a combined expertise and knowledge base of over 80 years in a wide variety of settings and situations.

As we have and continue to learn, this combined expertise, creativity, and collaboration provides individuals seeking their preferred career future or as a corporate customer managing their organization with unmatched resources, customer service, and value-added consulting  to identify, develop and manage their most valuable assets—talent—well into the 21st century.