My Story
"One more time, dude," my dad said as he tossed the baseball for me again. I might have been 4 or 5 years old. Certainly, wasn't over 5 since we had moved away from Plano shortly after that. He wanted me to end on a good hit, so for what feels like 20 minutes now, we have a video of him soft tossing me a ball, saying, "One more time, dude," repeatedly. Check out the full story here.
Mission: Our mission, as a team, is to support you in taking the swings One More Time for your mission, your passions, and your team(s). We know that burnout happens when you work hard doing the wrong work while remaining focused on the right work. We specialize in helping you do the work that fulfills your needs while allowing us to help bridge the gaps at an affordable price.
Vision: Every person deserves an environment where they have the greatest opportunity to be the best version of themselves, whatever that looks like, and be as successful as possible.
One More Time
Joe Mullikin, Ed.D.
Founder & CCO
As the Founder and CCO (Chief Connections Officer) I am on a mission to remove the non-essential work for schools, leaders, organizations, and communities so that they can focus on their true work. I aim be the connector for schools, leaders, organizations, and communities in finding solutions to their pain points, so that time can be spent doing the real work.
My ikigai is a longing desire to make sure that others feel as though they have a place they belong. Through telling my story, sharing my musings, and my meditations, my hope is that I can help people see that they are not alone. There is more than enough space in this world for the most authentic version of them, and their story is ALWAYS important. In a broken world where we're inundated with "perfection" - I prefer the beauty of kintsugi.
With a Doctorate in Educational Leadership and expertise in PreK-12 education, assessment, data literacy, and school culture, my recent years have been dedicated to elevating Meridian CUSD 223 in Northern Illinois as Acting Superintendent, Assistant Superintendent, School Principal, and Teacher. During that time, I also had the privilege of teaching adjuncts for multiple universities at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Our team's mission, to foster an environment that supports continuous improvement, thrived under my leadership, with a focus on character education programs, especially during the pandemic. As the director of continuous improvement and using the Baldridge Framework for Organizational Effectiveness, I helped lead Meridian CUSD 223 in 2024 to a Gold Award of Excellence from The Partnership for Excellence, the first school to receive this high honor in over 20 years.
The successful defense of my dissertation on character education during COVID-19 underpins my approach to leadership, emphasizing resilience, innovation, and community engagement as pillars for nurturing the next generation of learners. My work supporting districts and companies with assessment and data literacy, school culture, implementation, sustainability practices, and organizational effectiveness provides me with a unique background of experience in order to best support leaders, schools, organizations, and communities.
Education: B.S. in Kinesiology, Olivet Nazarene University; MAT in Secondary Science Education, Rockford University; MSEd in Educational Leadership, Western Illinois University; Ed.Doc. in Educational Leadership, Western Illinois University (Dissertation Focus: The Impact of Character Education on School Culture during COVID)
