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Peter Dupre, M.A.
Senior Consultant & Facilitator

Peter Dupre is President of Performance Inside, a division of Peak Performance that specializes in individual, team, and organizational performance. He helps companies build more productive workplaces through developing leaders, teaming cultures and whole systems execution. Peter serves his clients through coaching, training and consulting services.

Peter is a principal and founding partner of Peak Performance, an international training and development firm.  For the past twenty years, he has worked with organizational teams from Fortune 500 companies all over the world such as Proctor and Gamble, General Electric, CitiCorp, Frito-Lay, Inc., Farmers Insurance, Hewlett Packard, Calvin Klein Canada, CIBA-GEIGY, International Paper, United Healthcare, R.R. Donnelley & Sons, General Motors, Bausch & Lomb, AT & T, The United Nations Organization, and The Walt Disney Company. 

Since 1985, he has been an adjunct faculty member of the Center for Creative Leadership where he developed the successful Team Leadership Module for their flagship program, the Leadership Development Program, and the Leadership at the Peak Program, which was listed by the Wall Street Journal as the most effective leadership program for senior executives of all they evaluated worldwide. 

Peter’s background includes serving as Program Director for the Boojum Institute in San Diego and serving as a senior staff member with the Executive Development Program of the Colorado Outward Bound School.  Here, Peter led executives on adventuresome expeditions to hone their leadership skills.

After completing his undergraduate work in California, Peter earned his M.A. in Education from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

In his free time, Peter and his wife Brenda enjoy their home in Colorado, world travel, photographing exotic places, and still climbing an occasional mountain.

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Marilyn Laverty

Marilyn specializes in improving organizational capacity and profitability.  Her passion is providing managers and leader’s tools to optimize productivity and achieve results through people.  Topics clients request most often include:

• Leading Organizational Change
• Leadership Excellence
• Power, Politics and Influence
• Communicating with Backbone and Compassion – How to Have Difficult Conversations
• Tools to Build High Performance Teams

Marilyn served as the Vice President of Finance and Operations for an international 12 billion-dollar lending firm headquartered in Denver.  During her tenure at this firm, Marilyn was a team leader on a number of merger and acquisition task forces that resulted in growing the organization by 10 billion in assets in a period of seven years. 

Marilyn designed and led the leadership program for the University of Colorado at Boulder.  She facilitated workshops and collaborative decisions for over 86 departments on campus including strategic planning and annual goals for faculty and employees.

Ms. Laverty is an honors graduate of the University of Denver and earned her CPA with Touche Ross and Company. She is one of the talented members of the virtual team that founded The Women's Leadership Institute, a year long program for high potential managers.  She serves as the president of the board of TeamSkills Institute and has served as a board member for various Colorado Not for Profits.  She is a proud sponsor of Friendship Bridge providing micro credit loans in Guatemala.   

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Jacob McNulty
Director of Learning and Development

Jacob McNulty is the Director of Learning and Development at Enlightened Leadership Solutions where he focuses on the design of innovative learning solutions for clients.

Jacob received his Masters degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the University of Colorado and his Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from the University of Florida . Corporate positions include director and internal consultant for a nationwide facilities management company, leadership development consultant/facilitator for a consulting firm and an organizational development consultant to a state government agency of Colorado.

A unique perspective has resulted from Jacob's diverse background of consultation, facilitation, leadership and academia. This blend of real world experience with academic theory has allowed the learning and development team to create approaches to learning that are effective in real work situations - not just classrooms.

Jacob focuses the Learning and Development department at Enlightened Leadership Solutions on continuously creating newer and more effective ways to transfer knowledge. We are faced with opportunities to learn something everyday and Jacob's team is constantly striving to uncover the ways in which people retain and use this information.

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Ed Tate

Ed Tate is a successful facilitator, author, international keynote speaker and executive known worldwide as “the speaker who energizes, educates and entertains” and has worked with Enlightened Leadership Solutions since 1998.

Facilitator/Trainer. As a trainer, Ed launched his career with Career Track, formerly one of the largest seminar companies in the world, where he was frequently requested and booked for over 100 dates per year. Later, he became the Training Executive for the Denver Rocky Mountain News where he established a training department with over 27 programs and 1,100 employee-attendees each year. In 2001, Ed led a transition team to merge the 145-year-old “Rocky” with its 125-year-old rival, The Denver Post, in a deal that involved more than 5,000 people. He then became certified with Enlightened Leadership Solutions as a speaker and facilitator – quickly achieving high demand for repeat work.

Author. As an author, Ed co-wrote Motivational Selling: Advice on selling effectively, staying motivated and being a peak sales producer. He was also a contributor to Stories Trainers Tell (2003, Jossey-Bass Pfeiffer) and The Seven Strategies of Master Presenters (2004, Career Press). Additionally, Ed co-produced the six-CD audio album, Speaking Secrets of the Champions and the four-CD audio album, Connect with Any Audience.

Speaker. As a speaker, Ed is respected and sought after throughout the world. In the well-known Toastmasters world, Ed won the coveted Toastmasters International 2000 World Championship of Public Speaking, finishing ahead of 175,000 members from 70 countries. To date, he has spoken professionally in 46 states, 12 countries and on five continents.

Proven Business Leadership. Ed’s success in business has spanned more than two decades. For 14 years, he was a successful national account executive selling over $500 million in products and services to corporations and entrepreneurs throughout the United States. He co-created two business units that produced over $1.25 billion in revenue.

Since 1998, the same year he became affiliated with Enlightened Leadership Solutions, Ed has been principal of Ed Tate & Associates, LLC, a professional development firm that provides keynote and endnote presentations and workshops, as well as in-person and do-it-yourself tools and expertise on Leadership, Executive Presentation Skills, The Challenges of Change, Management, and Sales Presentation Skills.

Partial client list includes:

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Maria Valdes, Ph.D. 
Organizational Consultant, Executive Development & Coaching

Dr. Maria Valdes is an organizational consultant specializing in executive development and coaching.  She earned her Bachelor in Psychology, and her Master of Arts and Ph.D. in counseling from the University of Florida.  She conducts executive assessments, climate surveys, and group facilitation with senior leadership teams, and other intact teams. She also designs and delivers customized leadership development programs for clients.  She trains on topics that include feedback and coaching skills, driving high performance, diversity, managing differences, creating supportive work environments, team building, and utilizing group resources.

As an adjunct member of Summit Solutions since its inception, the Western Management Development Center (WMDC) since 1988, and the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) since 1983, Dr. Valdes provides feedback and assessment services for a variety of CCL and WMDC courses.  In the course of her 23 years as a coach, she has provided over 4,500 individual feedback sessions to executives from a variety of Fortune 500 companies.  She has taught training sessions on a variety of executive assessment and leadership development assessment instruments.  Additionally, Dr. Valdes trains and develops new feedback specialists.  She is fluent in Spanish and conducts executive feedback sessions in both English and Spanish.

She facilitates diversity classes including promotional and development issues of women and minority employees.  She also trains classes on gender differences and gender communication in the workplace.  In her practices she has conducted workshops on retention issues, mentoring programs, and feedback skills as they apply to non-traditional employees. 

Prior to her organizational practice, Dr. Valdes taught graduate and undergraduate courses in psychology, counseling, and testing.  She was the Director of Human Resources for the Denver Department of Human Services for 10 years and previously was appointed to the Civil Service Commission to supervise all testing for entry-level personnel and candidates for promotion in the Police and Fire Departments within the City and County of Denver.

Dr. Valdes is very interested in financial investment practices and is president of her financial investment club.  She personally oversees her own personal financial portfolio and stock picks.  She has traveled extensively, backpacking through every Western European country and parts of North Africa.  She has also traveled in Central America and the Caribbean.  She has worked in Western Europe, South and Central America, Puerto Rico, Turkey, Singapore, and Thailand.  She has visited Eastern Europe, Cambodia, Hong Kong, and Tokyo.

Partial client list includes American Express, Chase Manhattan, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, CitiCorp, FMC, Hartcourt & Brace, Pfizer, Genentech, Synaptics, Qwest, Sun Microsystems, Denver General, Ocean Journey, the Denver Botanic Gardens, Urban Children’s Coalition, NSA, Department of Defense, the Environmental Protection Agency and US Fish and Wildlife.  

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Vern Vobejda

Leadership Learning Specialist & Organizational Development Consultant

Vern Vobejda has over 30 years experience in management, training, and organization development consulting.  He is the senior partner with the Renaissance Consulting Group and a training associate with Enlightened Leadership Solutions, Inc . His background includes 11 years with Procter and Gamble and over 25 years experience with various training and consulting projects.  He has held the position of Undergraduate/Graduate Department Chair for the University of Phoenix and teaches leadership and organization development courses for both the University of Phoenix and Webster University.

Vern's specialties include helping organizations with strategic planning, cultural change issues, leadership and team development, systems analysis, and the introduction of self-managed organizational philosophies.  Leadership Development is often a collaborative effort to design customized programs with each client.  His organization development consultations have included cultural change programs, analysis of management and related systems effectiveness, strategic planning and implementation, and organizational reengineering projects.

Previous clients include private sector, government, non-profit, and educational institutions.   Examples include Metro Transit, the United States Synchronized Figure Skating Association, Hewlett Packard, Computer Task Group, California Bear Credit Union, Enlightened Leadership, United Technologies, Red Lion Inns, Current, Honeywell, U.S. West, GTE, Georgia Pacific, and Penrose Hospital Systems.

He has conducted seminars in many areas including facilitative leadership, managing change and transition, strategic thinking, high performance teams, and basic supervisory and management skill seminars.  His programs receive high marks for "value", "presentation style", and "practical applications".

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Susan Williams-Rogers

Having worked with Enlightened Leadership Solutions since 1995, Susan Williams-Rogers is a master facilitator, coach, and course developer. She has over two decades of experience in human development. She has extensive and varied business leadership organization development experience in a Fortune 100 company, and has twice headed small companies.

She has targeted her projects to the executive level and their divisions in order to facilitate organizational change. She has been a consultant, trainer, and coach with numerous corporations, banks, hospitals, government agencies, and institutions of higher learning.

Susan has designed courses and led seminars in Leadership, Change Management, Team Development, Consulting Skills, Coaching Skills, Communication Skills, Meeting Skills, Quality Customer Service, Personal Style Awareness, and Negotiating Skills. Susan has frequently worked with executive teams, incorporating their strategic and tactical issues into highly individualized leadership sessions.

While heading up Organizational Effectiveness, she introduced to BellSouth the largest career management program ever used until that time. She designed a course in Participative Leadership that was presented to over four thousand members of non-management in Network Services within BellSouth Corporation. There, she negotiated customer premises equipment contracts in preparation for divestiture of the Bell Operating Companies from AT&T. She also was a manager in Federal Regulatory, having direct interface in Washington, D.C. with the Federal Regulatory Commission.

Widely traveled, Susan has lived, visited or worked in thirty-six countries. In 1993 and 1994, she designed and led seminars for corporate managers in Kuwait, with the Office of Social Development with the Kuwaiti government and with Kuwait Airways. Susan designed and delivered a course in “Customer Service Excellence” that was adopted for all ground staff of Kuwait Airways and taught in six countries.

Active in several professional and community organizations, Susan has been on the boards of directors of three companies and community leadership organizations.

Susan received her Master’s degree from Georgia State University, followed by pre-doctoral study.

Partial client list includes The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) , Medtronics, Medic Computer Systems, many government agencies, including HUD, GSA, Department of Interior, and Department of Agriculture,  Life of Georgia Insurance Company, ING, Kuwait Airways, County of Orange, Orange County, California, Dell, Sprint, Prudential Securities.

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