Every so often, out of the blue, George Manthey hears from someone about the impact he’s had on their life. Sometimes it’s a former student. Sometimes it’s a school administrator who credits him with transforming their leadership.

He says he’s surprised when it happens. Others aren’t surprised at all.

“I think you would be hard pressed to find an educator who has made as deep an impact on public education over as long a period of time as George Manthey,” said Megan Tschannen-Moran, a professor of Educational Leadership at the College of William & Mary School of Education.

With his remarkable ability to inspire and coach leaders to effect positive change in their schools, Manthey has created a ripple effect that has resulted in a network of leaders dedicated to making a difference, not only in California, but in the world.

He has mentored countless individuals, nurtured their leadership skills, and empowered them to become advocates for social justice and equity. Manthey’s tireless efforts and dedication to the education profession have earned him this year’s Ferd. J. Kiesel Memorial Distinguished Service Award.

Manthey started his education career as a primary grades teacher and after three years became a special educator, working with emotionally disturbed and learning handicapped students. The students had an profound impact on him. One of his favorite memories is of a middle school student who gave him a hard time. One day, Manthey found a note from the boy on his desk. It described his challenges and how he was happy to be working on his problems at school.

“And then he said … ‘I love the people that help me. Even you, teach,’” Manthey recalls. “I know that that note turned me around more than I ever turned him around.”

Manthey became an elementary principal in the Los Gatos Union School District in 1989 and later took what he calls the most amazing professional development he’s ever had — ACSA’s Summer Leadership Institute for principals.

That experience put him on the path to working for ACSA. From 1999-2001, Manthey had the opportunity to provide follow-up coaching with the Principals’ Institute alumni from six Bay Area counties for ACSA’s Bay Area School Leadership Center. He also ran ACSA’s Intermediate Intervention for Underperforming Schools program.

“ACSA kept me around,” he says, and in 2001, he was hired as the professional learning executive for ACSA’s Educational Services Department and was later promoted to Assistant Executive Director, Educational Services. During his time in this role, Manthey helped launch ACSA’s Clear Credentialing Program. Back then, the induction program was an alternative way to clear an administrative services credential — through advocacy efforts by ACSA and Manthey, today it is the standard.

Manthey also wrote over 60 columns for ACSA’s Leadership magazine, where he shared personal experiences while reflecting on topics like the Common Core standards and what the great poets had to say about leadership.

During his career, Manthey has created visionary tools that have helped countless educators be more efficient. In 2010, he created the Standard Finder, which helped educators make sense of the newly created academic standards adopted by the state. Manthey input the standards into a database so educators could look them up and see how they progressed through the grades. He then rated each standard on Bloom’s Taxonomy to show what levels of cognitive thinking were being used.

Manthey was so passionate about the Standard Finder project, he recalls getting “in flow” and locking himself in a room to work on it for 48 hours straight. “My wife thought I’d lost my mind,” he said.

He also created a now-defunct video app used to study and improve instruction (Videre) and the Walk’bout tool, which assisted principals with creating classroom observation reports using their Palm Pilot.

Manthey attempted retirement in 2013, but it wasn’t long before a fellow Summer Leadership Institute team leader and friend Jeanie Cash approached him to start the consulting firm Lead Learner Associates, which aims to help school leaders improve their teams through positive change.

“I became intrigued about how successful all these authors were about having ‘difficult’ conversations, or ‘hard’ conversations, or ‘fierce’ conversations,” he said. “And I remember saying to Jeanie once, ‘You know, we wouldn’t need so many difficult conversations if we just would have better ones.’”

While researching his doctoral thesis, Manthey became a follower of the work of Megan Tschannen-Moran. Later he read her book “Evocative Coaching.” After reading it, Manthey enthusiastically reached out to Cash and told her: “Someone wrote our book!”

That book and its philosophy became the foundation for Manthey’s work coaching school leaders. Manthey met Tschannen-Moran at a conference and joined the faculty for her training program, which led to Manthey providing trainings all over California and the U.S., and in China. He’s also provided online training to administrators from over half a dozen foreign countries. Manthey provided training for ACSA, which adopted the model for its Leadership Coaching training. Cash, Donnita Davis-Perry and Manthey co-wrote a companion book to “Evocative Coaching” — a study guide for helping leaders abandon their “fix it” mentality in favor of guiding people to develop their own solutions through a relationship built upon listening and trust.

“It’s a whole different approach to being a leader,” Manthey said. “People appreciate being listened to instead of being told what to do.”

As a consultant, Manthey has worked with numerous districts, helping them to enhance their leadership practices with evaluation tools tailored to their specific needs, all while ensuring equity is the lens through which leadership decisions are made.

Two years ago, Manthey and Cash were hired to teach evocative coaching to all the principals and assistant principals in the California prison education system.

“A testament to his visionary approach is his transformative work in California’s prison education system,” said Karen Stapf Walters, executive director of California County Superintendents and former ACSA interim executive director. “By training principals and implementing progressive educational strategies, such as the concept of empathy and how to provide meaningful feedback to teachers, he has played a pivotal role in reshaping the landscape of education within this challenging environment.”

Manthey found out he was the recipient of this year’s Ferd. Kiesel award from Roxane Fuentes, ACSA’s Region 8 president who was on Manthey’s team when she participated in the Summer Leadership Institute. She took the opportunity to tell Manthey the impact that experience had on her life — another ripple from Manthey’s work bouncing back to him.

“When I hear that my work has had an effect on someone, it’s surprising and gratifying and inspiring,” he said. “What an amazing opportunity I had to be a teacher and to be a site leader, and then to work at ACSA. I had this really blessed career, and I’m grateful for it.”