Collaborative Connections Expert Consultants

Penny McDaniel	Robin Amadei
Anne Neal	Suzanne Jarboe-Simpson
Valerie Kendrick	Rita Schweitz
June Ramos	Larry Cerrillo

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 President-Elect for the American Society for Training and Development, Rocky Mountain Chapter (ASTD RMC); the founder and President of The Facilitator's Exchange; and President of The Women's Lighthouse Project, an organization that serves 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 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.

 

Valerie Kendrick is a seasoned professional specializing in training, organizational development, and performance improvement.  She has over 25 years experience in management, negotiations, and team development.  Valerie has spent time in both Europe and Central Asia as a management consultant and professional trainer for several multi-national corporations and privately held businesses, including Vodafone, Solvay, Deloitte, and Caratube Oil.  She has lead training seminars on communications skills for many large corporations including AAA Colorado, University Hospital and agencies within the Federal system.  Her executive toolbox includes her proprietary process (BEP) for organizational effectiveness, and her training tools such as individualized course design, mentoring, goal setting and team building programs.  She utilizes both traditional and non-traditional methods to improve performance when working with groups, small businesses and coaching entrepreneurs.

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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 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.

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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 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"

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Larry Cerrillo has ten years experience as a mediator/facilitator. His training and area of focus is with regard to environmental, public policy and water related issues. He developed and honed his alternative dispute resolution skills working as a consulting hydrogeologist for over thirty years nationally and internationally. Larry’s strengths are working with multi-cultural, multi-discipline groups with seemingly disparate goals. From working with tribal elders in mud huts in East Africa to ministers in the Ambassador’s office, he has been able to bring parties to agreement.

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