Karen’s particular expertise is to help leaders and teams develop more options for action in difficult situations. Her ability to constructively surface conflicts, different points of view, and interpersonal dynamics helps individuals and teams achieve high levels of collaboration and performance.

Karen holds a Master’s Degree and has post-graduate training in Organization and Systems Development from the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland. She is currently an avid student and practitioner of Integral Theory and Spiral Dynamics. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Karen was an officer in the Kaleel Jamison Consulting Group and held several Human Resources positions including: Vice President of Organization Effectiveness, First Bank System; Human Resources Director, UNUM Corporation; and Management Development Specialist, Mellon Bank.

Karen’s expertise includes the following core competencies:

Managing Change
Developing and implementing strategies for large-scale organizational changes.

Executive Development and Coaching
Implementing development strategies to unleash the effectiveness of individual executives and executive teams.

Team Development
Providing support for a team’s ability to develop and implement plans and relate effectively to each other and the broader organization.

Consulting skills training
Developing the capacity of HR, IT, Finance and other staff professionals to be effective internal consultants.

Diversity strategies
Developing strategies to address the impact of diversity on organizational culture and business performance.

A sampling of Karen’s clients include:
PNC Corporation
National City Corporation
First Data Corporation
U.S. Bank
Merriconeag Waldorf School
Allina Health Systems

Dick is the author of Memoirs of a Recovering Autocrat and Managing Change: A Leader’s Handbook for Implementing Strategy. His training in business, education, and organization development is reflected in an unusually broad perspective on subjects primarily associated with strategic planning, creating high performance organizations, and managing organizational change.

Dick is Managing Partner of Consulting Partners, the management consulting consortium based in Maine. The members of the consortium have outstanding reputations for helping corporations and public sector institutions develop the strategies, management processes and skills needed to transform themselves into high-performance, quality-driven, customer-focused organizations.

Dick’s expertise includes the following core competencies:

Executive Strategy Consulting
Working with executive groups to formulate mission and strategy and to develop plans for effective implementation.

Managing Change
Developing and implementing strategies for large-scale organizational changes.

Human Resource Strategy
Developing HR strategy to support the business strategy.

Executive Development and Coaching
Implementing development strategies to unleash the effectiveness of individual executives and executive teams.

Performance Management
Implementing goal setting, accountability, feedback and performance review processes.

A sampling of Dick’s clients include:
Prudential
Andersen Windows
Atlantic Health Systems
The Internal Revenue Service
PNC Bank
Carlson Companies
ESKOM (Africa)
British Airways
Honeywell

Consulting Partners’ Associates

Dr. Placida Gallegos

Dr. Placida Gallegos is a social psychologist who has spent her career in academia and organizations working to create healthier, more inclusive organizational cultures where people can thrive and achieve their fullest potential. She is currently the President of Solfire Consulting, Inc., an organization development consulting firm based in San Diego, California with clients throughout the United States. Plácida has worked extensively with a wide range of corporate clients across the country including manufacturing, insurance, financial, and educational institutions. She provides organizational consulting to companies in the areas of strategic culture change, supervisory and management skills, leadership styles, career development, conflict management, and team building. Plácida attended Loma Linda University and received her master’s degree in marriage, family and child counseling in 1981. She conducted extensive research in organizational behavior at the University of California at Riverside where she received her second master’s degree and Ph.D. in 1987. Plácida has written articles and presented at numerous conferences throughout the country on a wide range of organizational and diversity-related topics. In addition to her consulting work, she is currently on the faculty of the Fielding Graduate University in the Human and Organization Development Program in Santa Barbara, California.

Mary Ann Kraus

Mary Ann Kraus is a clinical psychologist and consultant working with individuals, partners, groups and teams. She is a professional staff member at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland and co chairs the GIC advanced training programs Working Integrally with Groups, Teams and Small Systems and Working Integrally with Two Person Systems in their Relational Fields. She has taught in GIC advanced training programs Working with Individuals, Working with Couples and Families, Working with Groups and in entry level programs Organization and System Development, Becoming a Better Intervener, and the Gestalt training program.

Her professional areas of interest are in expanding integral and holistic theory, integration and synthesis across models of development and psychotherapy, gender issues, and women's expanded development across the lifespan. She recently has taken courses in Integral Psychology and studied at the Integral Institute.

Peter Krembs

Peter Krembs has over 30 years of experience as a consultant to major U.S. and International Corporations. Peter specializes in leadership development both as an executive coach and as a seminar leader on leadership skills. Peter’s leadership development and organization development work specializes in the unique issues in professional and expert-based cultures, including the science and technology groups at GE, Medtronic, Applied Materials and the Mayo Clinic. His essay, “Leadership Challenges in Technical Organizations” appears in the book, Leadership in a New Era, edited by John Renesch and published in 1994. Co-author of On-The-Level, Performance Communication that Works, Peter has also written on how to set performance expectations, give and receive feedback and facilitate discussions about learning and development on the job.

Peter is a Fellow, University of Minnesota Executive Development Programs, and is also on the faculty of the Institute for Management Studies.

Peter’s graduate work is in Industrial Psychology from the University of Minnesota and has completed advanced training at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland’s Organization and Systems Development Program.

Carol Wishcamper

Carol Wishcamper has three decades of experience as a leader in the education and non-profit sectors. She has developed an organizational development consulting practice focused on capacity building offering services in strategic planning, leadership development, executive coaching, conflict management and communication skills.

Carol has trained extensively in Gestalt theory and methodology. She is currently an avid student of Integral Theory and Spiral Dynamics Integral. She has a background in somatic studies and Bert Hellinger’s use of Constellations as a way of understanding and working with large and small systems.