Penny McDaniel	Robin Amadei
Anne Neal	Rita Schweitz
June Ramos	Sunny Walker
Suzanne Jarboe-Simpson

Penny McDaniel

Penny McDaniel, President of Collaborative Connections, Inc., has more than fifteen years of experience working in the fields of facilitation and training and development.

Penny specializes in helping people develop their leadership skills, improve new and existing team effectiveness, and create and implement shared visions within their organizations.  She believes that every individual and every organization should be challenged to reach their highest potential.  Her commitment as a facilitator and trainer supports that process.

Penny is a skilled meeting facilitator and group mediator.  When working with groups, she is committed to creating a collaborative environment which supports individuals in solving problems, setting goals, building cohesiveness, and working through conflicts and issues in a positive and productive manner.

Penny has extensive experience working in the public sector with governmental agencies at all levels, the nonprofit sector and private industry.

As a leader in the community, Penny serves on a number of boards and professional associations.  Currently she is 2010 President for the American Society for Training and Development, Rocky Mountain Chapter (ASTD RMC); and the founder and President of The Facilitator’s Exchange. Penny recently served as the President of The Women’s Lighthouse Project, an organization that served women and their families with HIV/AIDS.

Penny has a master’s degree in Applied Communication with an emphasis on ADR, a certificate in Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) from the University of Denver, and a bachelor of science degree in Business Administration from the University of Colorado.  She is an authorized Inscape distributor who utilizes the DiSC® Profile to support clients’ abilities to successfully communicate and collaborate with each other, and is a Qualified ToP® (Technology of Participation®) Trainer.

Anne Neal

Anne Neal has been in the human development field for the past fourteen years with a life-time emphasis on personal and professional growth.  She’s been associated with the Institute for Consensus Action for the past two years.  Anne is an experienced facilitator, trainer, and executive coach and has worked with a wide variety of groups and individuals offering group processes, leadership development, strategic planning, and coaching services.  She’s best known for her energetic commitment to people achieving their highest visions.
 

Robin Amadei

Robin Amadei’s mission is to help people become excellent communicators and problem solvers so that they are empowered to resolve conflict, enhance skills, meet goals for success and move ahead in their lives.  Robin provides training, facilitation, mediation and coaching services for corporations and the government. Her trainings include: Constructive Conflict Management, Negotiation Skills, Mediation Skills, Facilitation Skills, Diversity, Teambuilding and Effective Communication.

Further, Robin conducts workplace assessments and teambuildings for public and private sector organizations.  Robin is a published author in the field of mediation and teambuilding in organizations and is a frequent speaker on the subjects of conflict management, communication and mediation.

Suzanne Jarboe Simpson

Suzanne Jarboe-Simpson has more than twenty years of experience as a trainer, facilitator and coach.  She is passionately committed to building and sustaining healthy organizations working in the private, public and not for profit sectors.

Suzanne’s areas of expertise include team building, effective communications, conflict resolution, strategic planning and mission and vision work.  She is skilled at supporting clients accomplish their goals and can help them see if they are being congruent in what they say they want and their behaviors which indicate what they’re willing to accept.  She helps clients identify internal challenges and provides coaching to managers, supervisors or team members to effectively deal with their challenges.

Suzanne has excellent facilitation skills and regularly facilitates annual retreats and strategic planning sessions for all types of organizations.  She is also trained in Appreciative Inquiry.  Suzanne is very committed to her community and has served on several boards.  She is the Change Management Analyst for the City of Fort Collins.

Sunny Walker

Sunny Walker, president of her own consulting firm and a senior facilitator with ICA Denver, spent 18 years working with the Institute of Cultural Affairs in developing methods and processes to ensure full participation of people engaged together in any effort. She remains a consultant with ICA and is senior facilitator with their local affiliate. She joined the Council of Energy Resource Tribes (CERT) as Senior Facilitator in 2006 to expand its capacity to offer participatory decision making as a tool toward more effective development of Tribal economies in alignment with each Tribe’s vision and priorities. Sunny has been a facilitator for many years, serving more than 10 of those overseas. More recently, Sunny has been part of a national team exploring a variety of virtual meeting tools, both synchronous (same place/time) and asynchronous (same place/different time). She developed the asynchronous Groupsite for the ToP Trainers Network which allows various action teams to have a workspace and share files, collaborate on documents, hold forums on relevant topics and easily communicate. Sunny is a founding member of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF), a Certified Professional Facilitator (CPF), a Certified ToP® Facilitator (CTF), and an assessor in both programs. As a ToP mentor trainer, she utilizes the ToP system of facilitation because of core values such as open and inclusive participation, profound respect, and transparency.

June Ramos

June Ramos has more than 25 years experience as a manager and consultant helping organizations manage the “people side” of the business. June helps organizations translate “abstract leadership and communication theory” to a practical level that everyone can relate to and immediately apply. Her results orientation creates high value for individuals and teams who want to produce sustainable outcomes and improve performance.

When you want to increase team and group meeting efficiency, June’s Facilitation for Results accelerates and ensures that: decisions are made, information is shared, work is planned and structured, strategy is developed, problems are solved, buy-in and commitment is strong, and action planning and execution is on target.

People and “experts” coming together to work is not always easy and does not automatically ensure results. An experienced, objective facilitator provides the structure and process to help people work together more easily. June provides a safe environment to allow participants to manage disagreement while producing collaborative agreements. Her style is one of appropriate balance between guiding the group when necessary, yet allowing the group to “manage its expertise” within a time-bound agenda. June works with private companies such as IBM, McData, Ball Aerospace, and Sun Microsystems, as well as government agencies, including local city and county governments, EPA, the Department of Energy, and Department of Defense, among others.

Rita Schweitz

Rita Schweitz can involve all players in designing change that will have enduring results, especially when it’s time to have an important conversation about where your organization is going or find consensus on accomplishing a goal.  She’s been at the forefront of facilitating large group events for more than 20 years—locally, nationally and internationally. Her aim is to establish a safe and open environment, one that’s based on mutual respect and honest inquiry. She encourages enthusiasm among participants so that they “own” the meetings—and more important, will be invested in implementing the agreed-on plans and directions.

Rita once helped a litigious group of stakeholders find common ground around the management of water in the headwaters of the Colorado River; 18 years later, they’re still working together.

As a professional facilitator, she has helped non-profit and environmental organizations, governmental agencies, the United Nations, Native American Tribes, educational systems, communities, business, and industry.  Rita has a master’s degree in counseling and has authored numerous journal articles and book chapters.

Rita’s article: “Future Search Conferences and Water Quality in the Upper Colorado River Basin“