Joseph Grenny

Co-author of New York Times best-seller of
"Crucial Conversations"

Joseph Grenny was formerly president of California Computer Corporation and an executive for the Covey Leadership Center. He has worked with and taught thousands of leaders from hundreds of organizations. Joseph has worked on every major continent from the board rooms of Fortune 500 companies to the slums of Nairobi, Kenya. He co-founded Unitus, a non-profit organization that helps third world poor achieve economic self-reliance. Over the past 20 years he has been an advisor to CEOs and senior executives on over a dozen major change initiatives - including one with Lockheed Martin Aeronautics whose CEO credited his work with enabling their winning of the $200 billion Joint Strike Fighter program.

Joseph is a partner in VitalSmarts, a company he co-founded in 1990 whose mission is to help individuals, teams and organizations become measurably more vital. There he has authored and co-authored numerous articles in the areas of personal and organizational effectiveness and co-authored three books, including the New York Times best-seller "Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High."

Joseph is the father of six children and lives in Orem, Utah.

Dr. Busch has over thirty years of broad professional experience as a teacher, public speaker, foreign policy analyst, manager, and leader at the executive level of the Federal Government. His early work experience included stints as an Army Medical Services Corps Officer in Germany and Vietnam and an Assistant Professorship in the Political Science Department at Denison University in Ohio. His distinguished career with the Central Intelligence Agency included senior assignments as Director of Leadership Analysis in the Directorate of Intelligence, Deputy Inspector General, and Director Human Resource Management.

Dr. Busch has been a frequent keynote speaker and lecturer on a broad variety of topics before both public and private sector audiences. His expertise spans the topics of leadership, decision making, organizational dynamics, career development, and adapting to the speed of change. His provocative, frank, and motivational speaking style consistently challenges his audiences to abandon their comfort zones and take personal responsibility for achieving the goals, changes, and outcomes we seek in our professional and personal lives. Dr. Busch is an insight weaver who promises to make you think.

Bruce Crager is President of ABB Offshore Systems Inc. with over 27 years of experience in the oil and gas industry. ABB OSI manufactures surface and subsea control systems for the drilling and production industry. The company also provides offshore project management, engineering, procurement, construction and installation of subsea field developments.

Bruce was previously Senior VP of Oceaneering International Inc. with responsibilities for mobile offshore production systems. During his time at Oceaneering, he held several other senior positions related to worldwide marketing and the manufacture of subsea products. Prior to joining OII, Bruce served in various management roles within Vetco-Gray Inc., Hughes Offshore, and as an engineer with Seaflo Systems and The Offshore Company (now Transocean Sedco Forex).

He is a graduate of Texas A&M University with a BS in Ocean Engineering and an MBA from the University of Houston. Bruce is the author of numerous articles and technical papers, and he is a co-author of four patents related to subsea equipment. He is a licensed Professional Engineer. Bruce is a member of the Advisory Council of the Dwight Look College of Engineering at Texas A&M University and of the Advisory Board for both the Offshore West Africa Conference and the Subsea Tieback Forum. He is also Secretary of API Subcommittee 17 related to subsea production systems.

Jacqueline Reid knows that interpersonal excellence creates better business results. She has successfully trained more than 20,000 people and consulted with more than 250 businesses both nationally and internationally during the past 25 years. She has extensive experience in assisting individuals and organizations to solve the most challenging of work-related problems by providing the needed support and skills for people to change. Her focus is on producing results in business by addressing interpersonal obstacles and/or system flaws that inhibit maximum motivation, communication, and creativity in people. Her strategies are theoretically sound and "consumer tested" by her numerous and varied business clients.

Ms. Reid is the founder of the Taos Conference for Government, an annual event that provides participants concrete tools for promoting change. Additionally, based on her research in work world changes, Ms. Reid has created Tools for Tomorrow - an integrated package of skills that are vital for successful results in the 21st Century workplace. The cornerstone tools are ProActive Responding™ - a self management system - and Building Teams and Collaborative Environments - a sophisticated and experiential skill set that prepares professionals and organizations for the necessary shift to accomplishing results through collaboration and teamwork.

Ms. Reid is a master at establishing relationships with her clients and audiences.
Her experience as a behaviorist, a manager and an educator lends credibility to her presentations and client interactions. Her use of humor and anecdote makes the most complex problems clear and easy to tackle.

Ms. Reid delivers over 100 presentations yearly to such clients as IBM, Westinghouse, Uniroyal, Courtaulds Textiles International, U.S. State Department, Michelin Corporation, Duke Power Company, U.S. Sprint, American Express, Eli Lilly & Co., and Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Shirley's core talents reside in working at executive management levels to provide both strategic and tactical support in guiding and strengthening organizations as they experience dramatic change and growth - from fundamental business turn-around situations to integrating acquisitions into existing operational structures, to succession planning and executive retention and coaching processes. Shirley's goal in this work is to ease and at the same time speed the transition of the change dynamic so that the desired results manifest more rapidly. Chambliss has 25 years experience in multiple industries and disciplines, having held a variety of executive-level positions with high-technology, manufacturing and services companies, including Phoenix Partners (and its New Horizons Computer Learning Center franchises), GECapital, Teledyne, Dun & Bradstreet and Environmental Risk Insurance Corporation (now a division of Zurich RE). She has traveled broadly and frequently and has supported clients throughout North and South America, Europe and Asia.

Shirley specializes in helping organizations identify and then achieve complex change that is essential to their success in new environments, not to mention in today's economy. Her most recent engagement (lasting 26 months) was with the CIO of General Motors, working to build a new global strategy, staff, structure and culture within the first ever unit of GM hired primarily from the outside.

Shirley's background with the corporations noted above had her pegged in executive positions responsible for operations results, quality initiatives and human resources and administration. Her varied and extensive background and life experiences have awarded her the temerity to claim not only a B.A. in Psychology, but a Masters in Survival and a Ph.D in Reality.

What can we learn about motivation from the world's most accomplished rock climber? Todd's spellbinding presentation demonstrates a different way of looking at our challenges and thus gaining new insights into our personal ascents.

Todd Skinner's achievements have been documented in film and magazines in 12 languages. He has accomplished more than 300 first ascents in 35 countries around the world and has established new climbs at the highest level of difficulty. He relishes the challenge of all aspects of rock climbing, from Bouldering to Himalayan peaks, but most of all dreams about Big Walls that may be free climbed in all corners of the globe.

Todd's climbing highlights include the first free ascent of the Salathe Wall on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, the first free ascent of the north face of Mt. Hooker in the Wind River Range, the first free ascent of The Great Canadian Knife in the Cirque of the Unclimbables in the Yukon Territories, the first free ascent of the Northwest Direct Route on Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, the first free ascent of the East Face of Trango Tower in Pakistan's Karakoram Himalayas (the first grade 7 free climb in the world), the first free ascent of a new route on Kaga Pamari, Hand of Fatima Group, Mali West Africa, the first free ascent of a new route, War and Poetry, on Ulamertorsuaq, in the Cape Farewell region of Greenland, and the first free ascent of the East Face of Poi, Ndoto Mtns of Northern Kenya.

Todd's accomplishments have been covered by periodicals including National Geographic, Life Magazine, Outside Magazine, USA Today, Climbing, and Rock and Ice - and the premier issue of National Geographic Adventure, April 1999. His expeditions to Pakistan, Vietnam, Mali, Greenland and Kenya have been featured on the Outdoor Life Channel. His expedition to Aritiyope, an Amazon big wall in Venezuela, was featured on ESPN. Todd was invited to be one of three adventures included in National Geographic's first "Live from National Geographic" lecture program held outside of Washington D.C.

Todd has been at the forefront of the development of Free Climb in the United States for the last 20 years and continues to believe the future of the sport lies in Free Climbing on bigger walls in remote corners of the world. Todd always has at least five years of plans on the drawing board and is most energized by dreaming of first free ascents in unexplored regions and unknown ranges.