Trainers

Trainers

Raymond Anessi offers 30 years of practical, operational experience in all areas of IT Support, Technology Development, Training and Customer Service. His resume includes leadership and management of Hardware and Software development teams, Data Centers, Network Operations Centers and Service Desks, and IT organizations of 700+ personnel with working budgets of more than $100 million. Embracing ITIL Service Management principles in 1994, he has been an active proponent and architect of many ITIL based initiatives designed to bring strategic business objectives and everyday IT tactical and operational goals into alignment during each of these positions.
Mr. Anessi is an enthusiastic teacher with a passion for his subjects, and years of experience provide him with an enhanced set of relevant use cases for students to embrace, increasing his ability to bring the subject matter to students in practical and engaging terms. He is accomplished at all levels of ITIL instruction, including Service Manager lead, with class certification and satisfaction rates among the highest in the industry.

Jackie Barretta is the CIO for Con-way, a Fortune 500 transportation and logistics provider. She has over 20 years of senior and executive leadership experience. Jackie is a business and technology visionary with a passion for innovation, faster time-to-market, high quality, cost and efficiency improvements, creative problem solving, and on-time/budget results. She has demonstrated skill in developing a compelling IT vision and using innovative thinking to execute the vision. She is noted for her ability to create world-class IT cultures that motivate organizations to industry bests in performance.

Dawn Foster is a co-founder and board member of Legion of Tech, a non-profit chartered with organizing free events for the Portland, Oregon technology community. As part of her work with Legion of Tech, Dawn is an organizer for Portland BarCamp, Ignite Portland and other events. Dawn has more than 14 years of experience in business and technology with expertise in strategic planning, management, community building, community management, open source software, market research, social media, and RSS.
Dawn has experience and a passion for bringing people together through a combination of online communities and real-world events. She has experience building new communities, managing existing communities, and providing consulting and advice to companies with a particular emphasis on developer and open source communities.

Manoj Garg is a Managing Partner and CIO consultant for Virtual Information Executives (VIE). He brings over twenty years of senior executive leadership skills and technology management experience with domestic and international operations to VIE’s clients. He has worked in four industries: manufacturing, hi-tech, leisure and higher education. Manoj’s Information Technology (IT) experience covers a broad array of skills, including Large Scale Technology Infrastructure Management, Outsourcing Management, Information Security Management, Program Management and Enterprise Resource Planning.
Manoj is noted for creating and implementing innovative solutions that assist businesses in achieving goals rapidly. Manoj has significant outsourcing experience and has delivered successful projects in many overseas locations including Brazil, Argentina, Egypt, Australia, India and China.

Mark Molau is a Practice Director and consultant for Virtual Information Executives (VIE) delivering enterprise performance management focused business intelligence and information management solutions. He has twenty years of senior leadership experience spanning various information technology, finance and business functions.
Mark has worked in various organizations, from the Fortune 50 to fledgling high-tech startups; working with sales, marketing, professional services, product management, research and development, service delivery, production engineering, manufacturing, finance and human resource organizations and functions. Prior to joining VIE, Mark led his own consulting firm and held senior management positions in IT, finance and professional services with firms such as Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and Price Waterhouse. He is known for building and leading creative, dynamic, focused cross-cultural teams working in a global business environment.

Colleen Wright is an Oregon native and graduate of Portland State University with two Business Administration degrees in marketing and advertising management. Her career has spanned a variety of industries from banking and finance to seminar marketing, sports marketing, high tech, non-profit, commercial real estate and horticulture.

As an Internet marketing trainer, consultant and owner of Response Interactive LLC, she enjoys helping her diverse client base and students capture their target market through the power of the search engines and the strength of compelling content.

Bob Lieberman , MS, PMP, is the founder of Cultivating Creativity, a Portland, Oregon company that teaches business leaders how to capitalize on the creative potential of their colleagues and themselves. A performing violinist and former software development manager, he has taught his creative leadership approach at conferences and to professional associations across North America.

Bob is a certified project manager, an educator, and a long-time software professional. He teaches Organizational Development at Portland State University, and holds a MS in Computer Science from Carnegie-Mellon University.

John Pierce , MBA, is Vice President of Information Systems at Tripwire, Inc. John brings over 25 years of senior level experience leading and managing software development and information systems teams. This experience includes 20 years with high-technology manufacturing and services companies and five years in healthcare with a variety of companies including Intel Corporation, Sequent Computer Systems, and RadiSys Corporation. With his undergraduate degree in Economics from Reed College and an MBA from Harvard University, John brings a business approach and perspective to his role as an IS executive.

Katherine Ellis ,CPA, MBA, CIA is a senior consultant for Mass Ingenuity (MI) and is the Practice Director for MI’s Professional Development and Training courses. She brings over twenty years of senior level experience in IT, finance and audit from work with a major northwest health insurance company, a regional retail food and drug company, and with a “Big 8” public accounting firm. Katherine’s focus is on “running IT like a business” to ensure that the financial, compliance and operational aspects of IT are effective, efficient and perform in support of the needs of the organization. Katherine is also Practice Director for MI’s IT Financial Management service offering.

Edree Allen-Agbro brings 30 years of experience as a professional development trainer, an organizational consultant and coach. She is the founder of Interpersonal Skill Coaching and bases her work on sound evidence and theory from many disciplines, including applied behavioral sciences and adult experiential learning. She also integrates new findings from sciences, such as sociobiology and neuroscience, with the art of her practice – which helps her clients speed up their learning and resulting successes.
Her clients include leaders from Microsoft and Hewlett Packard to the University of Washington and Virginia Mason Medical Center – as well as professional associations, non-profits and government agencies. As a faculty member of the Leadership Institute of Seattle, Edree taught and mentored thousands of graduate students, who were already business leaders, to master the spectrum of leadership knowledge and skills. Highlights of these teachings range from communication and collaboration to conflict resolution and systemic organizational development. She designed and led the Facilitation and Training program and introduced systems thinking to the human diversity curriculum. Edree is also co-author of Awakening the Workplace,which helps people successfully navigate workplace conflicts and positively interact with each other in the office.

Rachel L. Kjack is the Executive Director of the Oregon Training Network (OTN), as well as a highly sought after facilitator who leads workshops on topics ranging from small business strategy to communication skills. She brings 17 years of working with high-tech, business and creative professionals, as well as a long history developing communication skills of those who are experts in their field and who need help getting their message across to a variety of audiences.
Rachel is intimately familiar with knowledge worker needs and nuances and continually seeks out ways to collaborate and increase individual know-how and organizational performance. She has formerly served as Director of Training and Development for the Software Association of Oregon (SAO), Executive Director for the Washington State FFA Association, and as Communications Training Specialist for the worldwide high-tech public relations firm Waggener Edstrom.
Rachel has a highly-unique set of skills in organizational training and coaching – as well as a passion for leading others. She thrives on understanding other people and helping them grow. She is also a true believer in lifelong learning who continually brushes up on her own professional development skills and constantly incorporates new experiences and material into her teaching and educational programs. She is known for creating ongoing learning communities and motivating them to ask the important questions that propel them toward an inspiring future.

Denise Holmes Denise Holmes – In 2009, after years of providing a mix of training, organizational development, and human resources expertise as an employee of InFocus Corporation and Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), Denise founded Edge-Leadership Consulting. In her roles of coach, facilitator and organizational development consultant, Denise brings a deep curiosity, compassion, and authenticity to her work. She has a broad background in designing and delivering experiential leadership development, coaching individuals and teams through change and for increased performance, and applying system dynamics to her consulting.
Denise holds a Master of Arts degree in applied behavioral science from the Leadership Institute of Seattle, with a focus on coaching and consulting in organizations. She also holds a Master of Business Administration from Marylhurst University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in international studies from the University of Oregon. She is a member of the Organization Development Network (ODN) and the International Coach Federation (ICF).

Jim Shore is a thought leader in the Agile software development community. He combines deep technical expertise with whole-system thinking to help development teams worldwide achieve high throughput, market focus, opportunity generation, low defect rate, shrinking costs and happy team members. Jim believes that great software development teams consistently deliver market success, technical success, and personal success for team members and stakeholders.

Jim stated, “My work focuses on these success factors. I teach teams how to work closely with business experts and how to respond creatively and effectively to changes in the market. I work with managers to change the way teams are structured, enhance internal and external communications, and improve tactical and strategic planning. On the technical level, I help teams improve their estimation, build, test, and coding practices.”

Jim was an early adopter of Agile development and he continues to lead, teach, write and consult on Agile development processes. In 2001, he was one of the first ten people to sign the newly-released Agile Manifesto and in 2005 he was an inaugural recipient of the prestigious Gordon Pask Award for Contributions to Agile Practice. Jim is a popular lecturer on software development process and his writing has appeared in many industry publications, including IEEE Software, SD Times, and Better Software. His work is frequently referenced in the press and his Art of Agile blog is regularly found on AgileDaily’s list of top twenty most recommended Agile blogs. Jim is the co-author of The Art Of Agile Development (O’Reilly, 2007).

Diana Larsen , a partner and senior consultant with FutureWorks Consulting LLC, is a specialist in the human side of software development. Diana consults with leaders and teams to create work processes where innovation, inspiration, and imagination flourish. With more than 15 years of experience working with technical professionals, Diana brings focus to people, teams and projects. She activates and strengthens her clients’ proficiency in shaping an environment for productive teams and thriving in times of change.
Diana co-authored Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great! She publishes articles and writes occasional blog posts at “Partnerships and Possibilities”. Current chair of the Agile Alliance Board of Directors, she co-founded the “Agile Open Northwest” conference and the international “Retrospective Facilitators Gathering”.

Diana discovers solutions and possibilities where others find only barriers and obstacles.

Esther Derby is one of the rare breed of consultant who blends expertise on technical issues, managerial issues and people issues, and takes a systemic view of organizational challenges. She is well known for her work in helping teams grow to new levels of productivity.

Management coaching, Scrum implementation, retrospectives, and project assessments are four of Esther’s key practices that serve as effective tools to start team transformation.

Recognized as one of the world’s leaders in retrospectives, she often receives requests to work with struggling teams. Esther also coaches technical people who are making the transition to management.

Duke Castle was part of a group that introduced the Natural Step sustainability framework to Oregon in 1997. The group’s goal was to show business and community organizations how they could move toward creating a sustainable society while maintaining a healthy economy. Since then he has been prominent in teaching organizations how to effectively integrate the Natural Step sustainability framework into their business planning and strategic operations.
He has conducted close to 400 sustainability trainings and briefings throughout the State of Oregon and other parts of the Pacific Northwest In 2000 he was asked to train Oregon state leaders on sustainability and The Natural Step as part of Governor Kitzhaber’s sustainability executive order.
Duke’s business experience includes ten years as a marketing manager at Hewlett Packard and fifteen years as a strategic planning and marketing consultant. He has a BS degree in electrical engineering from Cornell University and an MBA in marketing from Stanford.

Sharon Buckmaster coaches and consults with organization leaders wanting to energize their workplace to achieve excellence. From her years as a leader in two Fortune 100 companies, as well as many years as a consultant across diverse industries, she has developed a clear perspective on organizational change that builds on individual and organization strengths to meet current challenges.
Sharon excels at working with leaders. All leaders. Her long-standing interest in leadership for women led her to found the Women’s Center for Applied Leadership as well as to her Ph.D. dissertation research called Standing Up and Standing Proud: Senior Executive Women Who Advocate for Gender-Equity. She is an associate of the Center for Gender in Organizations at Simmons College and currently teaches in the Master’s program for Applied Information Management at the University of Oregon.
Sharon sees the art of leadership as a creative endeavor shaped by context and character.

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