Course Description

AFSA Florida Fire Con Conference 2025

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Servant Leadership

Type:
Business Practice
Location:
Marine
CEUs:
1
Date:
Sep 18th
Time:
11:00am - 12:00pm

The Servant Leader Session is designed to provide attendees with insight into how and why that particular type of leadership style can and does produce incredible results, as it did with the Tampa Bay Lightning Hockey Club of the National Hockey League (NHL) with its first Stanley Cup Championship in 2004 and two more Championships in 2020 and 2021 under different Owners, General Managers, and Head Coaches. It is also meant to demonstrate that dramatically different personalities can be Servant Leaders, dispelling the common misperception that being a Servant Leader is about soft skill, capitulation, or permitting employees to run the enterprise.
Attendees will get a behind the scenes look at building a winning organization and doing it the right way, by investing first and foremost in their people.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Recognize that leading a group of professional athletes to achieve organizational success is fundamentally the same as leading your own employees to do the same.
  2. Understand that organizational success starts at the top with a great leader and hear about real world examples of transformational leaders with the Tampa Bay Lightning organization.
  3. Consider the traits and values of Servant Leaders and why their approach inspires and empowers employees to great success.
  4. Appreciate that being a Servant Leader does not mean being soft or a pushover or avoiding confrontation with real world examples.
  5. Have some fun listening to great stories about how Servant Leadership produced a Stanley Cup Championship in 2004 and two more Championships in 2020 and 2021 along with over a decade of sustained excellence.
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Jay Feaster
Tampa Bay Lightning

Jay Feaster is the Sr. Vice President, Legal & Business Affairs, Vinik Sports Group (VSG) and its related entities including Amalie Arena and the Tampa Bay Lightning Hockey Club (NHL), having been named to the position on July 1, 2021. Prior to that time, Feaster served The Lightning Foundation as Vice President of Community Hockey Development. He returned to Tampa in July 2014 after spending four years in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, first as Assistant General Manager and then as General Manager of the Calgary Flames Hockey Club (NHL).

Feaster is responsible for VSG’s legal department, government relations, risk management, and various non-recurring special projects. Feaster spent 7 years in Community Hockey, growing participation in the game at all levels, and increasing awareness for the game generally, and the team specifically, in the community. He served as President of the Lightning High School Hockey League (2015-2023) and continues to serve as a member of the League’s Board of Directors.

This is Feaster’s second stint with the Lightning, as he served as Assistant General Manager from 1998-2002, and as General Manager from 2002-2008. Feaster guided the Lightning to back-to-back Southeast Division titles (2002-03 and 2003-04), and he was GM in 2004 when the Lightning won the Stanley Cup. He was recognized as “The Sporting News Executive of the Year” by a vote of his peers that year.

Prior to joining the Lightning, Feaster served as Vice President of the Sports & Entertainment Group for Hershey Entertainment and Resorts Company, and as General Manager and then President of the Hershey Bears Hockey Club of the American Hockey League (AHL). Feaster led the Bears to the Calder Cup Championship in 1997 and was named the AHL’s Executive of the Year. He also was GM of Hersheypark Arena and Hersheypark Stadium, leading both venues to record revenue and attendance during his tenure.

A summa cum laude graduate of Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, PA, and a cum laude graduate of The Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC., Feaster is licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia and has Authorized House Counsel status with the Florida Bar. He also serves as a member of the Florida Sports Foundation Board of Directors and the After School All-Stars-Tampa Advisory Board.