Dr. Cynthia Alt has over 22 years experience providing consulting services to both Fortune 200 companies and entrepreneurs. With core competencies in organizational development and change management and expertise in strategic planning, leadership development and business alignment initiatives, Dr. Alt consistently helped her clients increase employee engagement and customer satisfaction. As an executive coach, she helps senior leaders align individual and organizational goals, maximize productivity, achieve strategic objectives and produce measurable outcomes. In 1993 Cynthia earned a Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology. Her dissertation focused on ways to induce creativity in teams. Now an instructor with the School of Extended Education at Brandman University, she was previously an adjunct professor at Alliant International University. Dr. Alt has a very interactive and hands-on teaching style that engages adult learners.
Jim Bauer is a management and organizational development consultant who specializes in leadership development that fosters trust, builds results-driven teams, improves workplace productivity through effective communication, and achieves work/life balance. Jim brings over 30 years of management experience with the Shell Oil Company to his clients. He has a proven track record of assisting a variety of organizations – from large corporations to local non-profits – achieve their desired results. As an instructor, Jim enjoys utilizing experiential learning and includes a variety of games and simulations in his custom training programs. He is also certified by FranklinCovey, Vital Smarts and DDI to teach many of their workshops.
Gail Brown, President of Exceeding Expectations, founded her training company in early 1997. Her background includes over 25 years with the Walt Disney Company in Human Resources, Marketing, Sales, Special Event Design and Operations. She was also the Director of Sales and Operations for Jenny Craig International. Gail designs and presents training workshops, retreats and motivational presentations for clients in a variety of industries. Gail's areas of expertise include Customer Service, Leadership, Team Building, Organizational Change, Ethics and Sexual Harassment Prevention. Gail has a Bachelor of Arts degree from CSULB and certificates in Motivational Management and Wilson Learning Sales Training. She teaches in the Continuing Education Departments at San Diego State College and Mira Costa College as well as the Extended Education Department of Brandman University.
Victor Bullara, ACC, ELI-MP, Master Coach
Victor ("Vic") Bullara combines 22 years' experience as a human resources consultant with 13 years' experience as Director/Chief HR Officer. As HR Practice Leader for three international consulting firms, he implemented competency based HR programs, HR "best practices" and hundreds of leadership development programs for Fortune 500 firms. He has coached, developed and mentored more than 5,000 leaders at all levels. He specializes in helping leaders and organizations achieve breakthrough results. His areas of expertise include executive coaching, leadership development, employee assessment, selection and retention, and creating a high performing, Inspired Workplace™. He is a certified executive coach, an Energy Leadership™ Index Master Practitioner and an Executive Career Hub Master Coach.
Rochelle Burgess brings 30 years of experience with Fortune 500 companies to her organizational development and business consulting practice. She specializes in custom program design and curriculum development geared towards Human Resources professionals. Her areas of expertise include conflict/change management, employee selection & retention, generations in the workplace, and positioning the HR function as a critical business partner. Rochelle is an adjunct faculty member in the Organizational Leadership program at Brandman University. She is certified in and utilizes a variety of personal assessment instruments including MBTI, DiSC, Thomas-Kilmann, & Polaris.
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Jeff Carlson brings 25 years of corporate leadership and small business ownership experience to the training and educational setting. He specializes in strategic leadership, change management, developing customer centric organizations and enhancing business performance. He has served as CEO/COO, President, board member and senior manager of businesses ranging from Fortune 500 companies to entrepreneurial start-up ventures. He has diverse experience leading the strategy, operations, marketing programs and growth of firms in a wide variety of industries. Mr. Carlson has held direct responsibility for companies with as many as 400 employees with both domestic and global operations. Mr. Carlson has been trained as a Vistage Coach and is an adjunct faculty member and Extended Education instructor at for Brandman University. He also teaches at Webster University and has conducted national business presentations to audiences across the United States.
Linda Denton has over 22 years as a senior executive in management and organization development with expertise in business coaching, corporate training, and teaching at both Brandman University and UCI. She is currently an organizational consultant and Professional Certified Coach (PCC) specializing in leadership and team development. Linda is skilled in a variety of assessments including EQ-i, Keirsey Temperament, MBTI, and DiSC and has a proven track record of positively impacting both individual and organizational performance. She is known for her ability to inspire and develop people in a wide range of business settings. Linda was instrumental in developing the Leadership Development Certificate Program for Managers.
C. Harry Eggleton has over two decades of experience in Training, HRD and Organization Effectiveness within the finance industry. His areas of expertise include teams; strategic initiatives; performance optimization; incentive, financial and reward systems; communication; and management and leadership design, development, and presentation. With dual graduate degrees, Harry can provide both a solid business approach and a behavioral sciences perspective to his corporate and public sector clients. Harry is a sought after speaker and has presented at national and regional conferences of the American Society for Training & Development, the Organization Development Network, the Western Association for Psychological Type, the Academy of Management, and the Credit Union National Association. In addition to teaching for Brandman University, Harry has been a member of faculty at Claremont Graduate School, the University of San Francisco, and Cal Poly, Pomona. He has also been a facilitator at the Harvard Business School and the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Mari Frank has almost 30 years of experience providing training and consulting for Fortune 1000 companies, government entities, and business professionals. She’s a certified CLE trainer for the State Bar of California, and certified as a master mediator and privacy expert for various agencies. She’s the author of Negotiation Breakthroughs, co- author of Stepping Stones to Success and has written several other books. Her expertise includes dispute resolution, negotiation, mediation, conflict transformation, effective communication/collaboration, legal ethics, information privacy, and identity theft/fraud protection for businesses and consumers. In addition to teaching for Brandman University and UC Irvine, she has also taught at Western State College of Law and CSU Fullerton. As an Orange County Sheriff Reserve PSR, she has provided training/consulting for the department. She is also in demand as a speaker/trainer at corporate, governmental and legal conferences.
Susan Gerke is a much sought after business and management consultant and organization development specialist. Her areas of expertise include leadership development, remote teaming (published author), developing and implementing mentoring programs for organizations, and building high performance teams through group dynamics and interpersonal skills training. She is also skilled at teaching current and emerging leaders effective time management, delegation and decision making skills. Susan brings over 21 years of leadership experience with the IBM Corporation to her consulting and teaching practice. She is an expert in custom program design and curriculum development. Her training programs are highly experiential and provide participants with tangible solutions to real world tasks and issues. Susan was instrumental in developing, and is also an instructor for, the Leadership Development Certificate Program for Managers.
Marty Lasker is a facilitator who applies experiential strategies and techniques to optimize learning in finance, leadership, change, team building, and culture awareness. Most of his training clients have been publicly held global corporations, but he has also worked with companies of all sizes and types as well as non-profit organizations. Marty has taught courses at Harvard, Stanford and Boston Universities, using business simulations that added value to their curricula. He is a certified mediator and uses a combination of facilitation and evaluative approaches to help parties reach agreement. As a member of the California Superior Court ADR panels, Marty has mediated over 300 disputes. Marty is also skilled at facilitating strategic planning sessions and board retreats. His solid background in management of both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations adds to the credibility and content of his training programs.
Mary Lawrence-Jones, MAOL
Mary Lawrence-Jones has over twenty-five years of executive and management experience in California state government and ten years of management in the private sector. She has overseen programs in some of the largest counties in California including Los Angeles, Alameda, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Sacramento. Mary has considerable experience conducting mandatory supervisory and employee skill-based training. She is adept at motivating employees to achieve personal excellence and program success through visioning, goal setting, and team building. Mary excels at collaboration, communication and customer service and has developed and maintained excellent working relationships with judges, commissioners, county and state directors, advocates and key stakeholders. In 2010 she was acknowledged by local county officials for exemplary work in achieving statewide collaboration on a major initiative. Mary earned a Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership and an Executive Certificate in Public and Non-Profit Leadership from Brandman University and a Bachelor of Science degree from Southern Illinois University.
Mike Lednovich specializes in leadership development and executive effectiveness and works primarily with VPs, Directors and mid-level managers of major corporations, public agencies and non-profit organizations. Mike is a former corporate executive with Freedom Communications and chaired the Strategic Directions Committee as well as the Corporate Leadership Team. As a professional consultant in private practice, Mike specializes in strategic planning, leadership development, team building, career management and performance management. Mike is a prolific writer, bringing his background as an award winning journalist to his career as a teacher, trainer, business consultant and executive coach. He is also certified facilitator and trainer with the Covey Leadership Center and has earned Masters Certification in Organizational Development from Stanford's Graduate School of Business and Masters Certification in Change Management from Northwestern University Kellogg School of Newspaper Management.
Dr. Sharon Link
Dr. Sharon Link has a Ph.D. in Leadership Studies specializing in organizational systems and is a certified coach and trained facilitator. She has extensive experiencing working with Fortune 500 companies in the NYC Metro Area where she is also an Associate Professor at a private college and teaches on online graduate program she designed. Sharon is a prolific author with numerous published research based articles and books on topics related to leadership, coaching, statistics, and autism. She has utilized her experience as the HR Director for a public school district to help her clients develop customized on-boarding and managerial training programs. Passionate about e-learning, Sharon is an expert in using the authoring and hosting technologies associated with this environment. Her most recent project has been to design and develop a five course online Instructional Design Certificate program offered through Brandman University’s School of Extended Education.
Geri Lopker is a trainer, instructional designer, facilitator, and performance consultant whose focus is organizational performance improvement and employee development. Her areas of expertise include systems, finance, change management, diversity, leadership development, communication, strategic planning, team building, and customer relations. Geri has designed and conducted hundreds of custom in-house workshops for a wide range of corporate, industrial, nonprofit, government and Fortune 1000 clients. Geri excels at facilitating focus groups; conducting needs analysis; designing interventions, training and materials; and speaking to diverse groups. Geri teaches several Brandman University Extended Education certificate programs and is also an instructor in ASTD's Total Trainer program.
Jo Ann Malagon is a bilingual (English/Spanish) trainer and business consultant specializing in the delivery of Continuous Improvement, Leadership/Supervisor Development, Communication Skills, and Sexual Harassment AB1825 programs. She has a proven track record of creating and aligning training to deliver results and meet management's objectives. She has worked with large and small organizations to develop bottom up communication, solve problems, build high performance work teams and implement process improvement principles of reducing waste, increasing efficiencies, process mapping and creating a lean culture. Skilled in best teaching methods for a diverse workforce and bridging communication gaps betweek departments and levels. Praised by her employers for thinking outside of the box and participatory learning practices, her focus since 1998 has been on raising performance expectations and teamwork to compete in the 21st Century.
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Dr. Jennifer McCusker has more than 10 years of experience enabling organizations of all sizes, in a variety of industries, realize their potential through people. She has achieved career success at organizations such as Taco Bell, New Century Financial Corporation, Pacific Sunwear of California and Oakley through a rare blend of creative and operational strengths as well as a no-nonsense business orientation. Jennifer earned her Ph.D. and M.S. in Organizational Psychology from Alliant University. Her areas of expertise include performance and talent management integration, leadership and team development, change management, and communication. Jennifer was instrumental in developing the OD Best Practices Certificate program for the Leadership Services Program under Extended Education at Brandman University. In addition to her learning and OD responsibilities at Oakley and her university teaching assignments, she is active as a consultant, speaker and higher education advisory board member.
Janine McDonald has 17 years of executive experience in operations, training and organizational development. She has a proven ability to build organizational capability and achieve business objectives by designing and integrating programs to achieve optimal performance. Janine is currently a senior instructor with the Leadership Services Program and a business consultant specializing in leadership development, team building, employee engagement, work/life balance and optimizing organizational culture. Janine is a high energy, engaging facilitator and speaker and is known for her innovative training techniques and interactive learning environment. Janine is committed to assisting organizations create a values-driven, socially responsible and environmentally friendly culture in which employees become agents of change while improving profitability. She was instrumental in developing, and is also an instructor for, the Building Industry Association President's Leadership Academy and The Merit Companies Emerging Leader Program.
W. Barry Nixon
W. Barry Nixon is certified in Workplace Security, Mediation, Anger Management facilitation, Trauma Response, Organization Development, and Systems Thinking. He is a frequent speaker on Workplace Violence and Background Screening. He has written three books on workplace violence as well as “Background Screening and Investigations: Managing Risk in the Hiring Process from the HR and Security Perspective.” He has appeared on CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, Wall Street Journal Radio, United Kingdom – National Talk Radio and hosted the popular radio talk show - 'Workplace Violence Today. He also publishes ‘The Workplace Violence Prevention eReport.’ Barry was named as ‘One of the Top 25 Most Influential People in Security’ by Security Magazine in December 2009 and recently served on the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) Security, Safety and Occupational Health Special Expertise Panel.
Debra Rocha has over 20 years of organizational development, business management and legal experience with a variety of major corporations, non-profit organizations, government agencies and academic institutions. She is a certified mediator and expert in dispute resolution and conflict management. Her other areas of expertise include collaboration and problem solving, effective communication, negotiation, and executive coaching. Debra also has substantial experience in the higher education field and develops and teaches a wide range of business and legal courses at local colleges and universities. Her unique background makes her a sought after lecturer and conference speaker at professional, business and education association events.
Dr. Kristin Rozelle is currently a full-time OD Consultant for Kaiser Permanente overseeing system-wide initiatives. She brings her expertise in organization development, leadership, executive coaching, talent management, team building & group dynamics, strategic planning and change management to the academic courses she teaches at Keller Graduate School, Hope International University and Brandman University. Dr. Rozelle is an expert in adult learning with an M.S. in Education and has significant experience in higher education administration. She is also a professional business coach and graduate of Fielding Graduate University with a Ph.D. in Human and Organizational Systems.
Desiree has over 18 years experience in Human Resources and Learning and Development. She is currently a consultant with clients representing a variety of industries as well as government agencies, education institutions and non-profit organizations. Desiree is passionate about helping businesses build strong teams that communicate clearly and work efficiently under pressure. Clients value her ability to lead process improvement initiatives and connect with a diverse workforce. She has a wide range of expertise that includes leadership, communication, diversity development, performance management, customer service, team building, compliance training and employment law. In addition to teaching at Brandman University in the School of Extended Education, El Camino College, and Long Beach Community College, Desiree is a certified FranklinCovey facilitator. She holds Masters degree in Organization Management from the University of Phoenix.
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Dr. Bonni Stachowiak has over 15 years of corporate experience in the service and technology industries with expertise in franchise operations and computer training. She has been a business and organizational development consultant for the last four years and is on the faculty of the School of Business and Management at Vanguard University. Bonni is an expert in instructional design and specializes in integrating technology with learning initiatives and creating eLearning curriculum. She also helps companies reduce employee turnover through leadership development, build a culture of learning that fosters growth and productivity, and stay ahead of the change curve through strategic planning and succession management. Bonni earned her Master's in Organizational Leadership from Chapman University College and her Ed.D. in Organizational Leadership at Pepperdine University.
Michael Stratford is a leader in the field of coaching and has been a Master Certified Coach (MCC) in private practice since 1995. He specializes in coach training and development and has trained over 6,000 coaches worldwide and as well as written and developed curriculum for a number of coaching training organizations. He has coached a wide range of business clients from executives and teams in Fortune 50 companies to rock bands. Michael is also a published author and has written three books on coaching for the Master Coach Series. He has an innovative approach to leadership development and through his experiences of masterful coaching and training, has developed a deep knowledge and understanding of a wide range of human and organizational issues.
Claudia Thair is a skilled human resource specialist in the area of leadership and organization development. As a consultant, she works with organizations to build world class talent, design HR strategies, build leadership capabilities, establish learning strategies, and design corporate universities. Claudia has a proven track record of aligning development with business goals and championing change. Areas of expertise include needs assessment, facilitation, training, instructional design, survey design, coaching, change management, and team building. Claudia is active in ASTD-OC, ISPI-OC and NHRA. An accomplished public speaker, she has given presentations on change and human relations to government and educational organizations. Claudia earned the Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership from Chapman University and also has a Marketing Communications and Public Relations certificate from the University of California, Irvine.
Margaret Walker has over 22 years experience in corporate human resources and organization development. As a management consultant, she advises organizations on how to build and sustain their human capital capacity and improve organizational performance by attracting, developing, engaging, motivating and retaining people. Her broad range of expertise includes leadership development, executive coaching, employee engagement, HR strategic planning, interpersonal communication, organizational change and team building. While Margaret’s background is primarily in health care, she also has experience working with clients in the entertainment, retail, hospitality and service industries. She is a certified consultant for Harrison Assessments and a certified executive coach through the College of Executive Coaching. She is an adjunct faculty member in the graduate Organizational Leadership program at Brandman University as well as a senior instructor in the School of Extended Education.