William J. Tommie Jr., CPPO

To hear it told, when Joe Tommie was awarded the first Instructor Hall of Fame award at NIGP Forum earlier this year, there wasn’t a dry eye in the room. “That was one of the biggest honors of my life,” Joe said about the experience, with a huge grin on his face. When he had heard there was an Instructor Hall of Fame award to be given, he started counting the three, four, five colleagues he thought, in his words, “deserved it more,” and was “shocked” to be the first to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. 

Joe has been teaching since 1996, touching students’ lives in both in-person and virtual learning environments for more than two and a half decades. He’s taught day-long courses in-person in New York (“Some of the nicest people I’ve ever met,” Joe said), virtual courses to procurement professionals in Hawaii, and a little bit of everything in between. When asked what he enjoys most about teaching, Joe says it’s getting to know so many different people from so many different places. He’s taught virtual classes rich with a diversity of students from Florida, Illinois, Texas, California, Washington, Oregon, and Hawaii, all sharing the same classroom, and about his experience he says this: “People sometimes get stereotyped based on where they’re from, but there’s really no difference in people.” 

If you haven’t yet had a chance to take a course with Joe, he is teaching the Construction Procurement Specialization Certificate in January and again in February 2024, the Social Responsibility Competency Module in February 2024, and the Competency and Requirements Planning Competency Module in March 2024.