Keynote Sponsored by New Ground Creative “Dismantling Diversity Management – Introducing an Ethical Performance Improvement Campaign”
Dr. Jude Smith Rachele, CEO – Abundant Sun
Jude is a highly charismatic, dynamic, and insightful trainer and presenter. Originally from the USA, she has lived and worked internationally across EMEA and the Americas, and currently divides her time between the UK, Europe and North America. Jude introduces best-practice from the private and public sectors of many territories ensuring clients receive leading-edge learning solutions. Jude has worked in the area of diversity, unconscious bias, inclusive leadership and cultural competence for the past 25 years. She has designed numerous programs to help professionals display inclusive behaviors and to understand and respond respectfully to various cultural traditions, behaviors and values. Her work also emphasizes the responsibility that professionals have to understand differences in order that they don’t discriminate and that they treat people fairly or sensitively. The objective is to get the best out of people by understanding them as individuals, within the context of their different visible and non-visible identities.
Jude is an Adjunct Professor at Marlboro College, VT on its MBA in Managing for Sustainability. She has previously been an Adjunct Professor in Cross-Cultural Psychology, Drew University, Madison, New Jersey, USA and similarly the Adjunct Professor in Cross-Cultural Psychology, Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey. She is also a radio commentator on Vermont Public Radio, speaking on business ethics, diversity, inclusion, leadership and governance. Jude is CEO of Abundant Sun and holds a BA, in Psychology, and a PhD, in Business & Law. She is also the author of many articles including her own recent book “Dismantling Diversity Management: Introducing an Ethical Performance Improvement Campaign” published in June 2017 by Routledge.
Workshop #1 – Employment in Recovery Part 1
Moderator :
Mickey Wiles, CEO – Working Fields LLC
Mickey Wiles is the CEO and Founder of Working Fields, a mission based staffing agency focused on second chance hire predominately people in recovery from substance use addictions. Mickey leads a staff of Account Managers and Recovery Coaches that provide a supportive model of employment and recovery. This innovative employment solution meets the needs of both those in early recovery as well as Vermont Employers seeking dedicated and reliable employees.
Panelists:
Tom Matthews, Account Director – the Tech Group
Tom has worked in telecommunications since 1990 after graduating with a BS in Corporate Communications from Castleton State College (now Castleton University). He immediately began his career in Burlington, Vermont with Network Services Corporation, an Authorized Agent of New England Telephone. In 2000, he began work at Waitsfield and Champlain Valley Telecom as the Sales Manager. In 2014, he began working again with FairPoint Communications as a Level III Account Manager. He now joins the Techgroup the Human Side of IT as the Account Director. He is very excited to work with a fantastic Vermont company in the challenging field of Information Technology.
Joe Soulia, General Manager, Material Recovery Facility for Rutland – Casella Waste Management
Joseph Soulia is General Manager of the Casella Recycling facility in Rutland, Vermont. Joe was born and raised in Connecticut. After completing his education, Joe entered the United States Marine Corp. where his passion for developing people began. In the Marines, Joe was selected to be trained in Emergency Medicine at the Camp Lejeune Hospital in North Carolina and became certified to train others to become Emergency Medical Technicians.
Joe then moved to Vermont and joined Casella in 1997. Joe applies the same disciplined approach he learned in the Marines to helping others succeed at Casella. Joe’s fundamental approach is to teach others the importance of good manners, patience, empathy and hard work.
In 2017, Joe was recognized by the Vermont Governor’s office with a Spirit of the ADA award, a prestigious honor given to leaders who signify the Americans with Disabilities Act by promoting the employment of Vermont citizens of all abilities.
Kelly Robinson, VP Human Resources – Casella Waste Management
Prior to joining Casella Waste Systems as the Vice President of Human Resources, Kelley has spent 30 years as a Human Resources professional at such companies as Procter and Gamble, Waste Management and most recently at Lindt and Sprungli Chocolate. For the past 15 years his focus has been on the strategic use of Talent Management and Career Path development.
Tara Murphy, CEO – Vermont Smoke & Cure
Tara J. Murphy received her Bachelor of Science degree from the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in 1995. She is currently the CEO of Vermont Smoke & Cure, a VMG Partners Natural Foods brand that makes the No. 1 natural meat stick in the jerky category. Tara started her career with Procter & Gamble where she held numerous positions over 17 years. Later she ran U.S. Home Care for Reckitt Benckiser and then started up a new cold drink maker for Keurig Green Mountain.
Workshop #2 – Leveraging a Co-Generational Workplace for a Stronger Business
Liz Vogel, CEO – Dots, Inc.
Connecting the dots between people and the information they need is not only Liz’s passion, but her purpose in life, as well. In every role she has been in, from CEO, to business consultant in the tech industry, to an entrepreneur inventing new products to disrupt the marketplace, the core of her work is ensuring people and communities have the information and tools they needed to be successful. In her role as CEO of Dots Inc., she is again connecting the dots with the co-generational workforce, assisting organizations and individuals with work transitions and developing new structures to leverage experience and capture knowledge across the generations.
Workshop #3 – Equity and Inclusion: Intro to Microaggressions
Equity Solutions
The Equity Solutions team is a cross-class collaborative of teachers, trainers, social workers, community organizers, consultants, business owners, and directors of organizations. We bring expertise from our work to address inequality, as well as from our lived experiences as people who are or have been living in poverty. Our expertise also comes from our membership in a community with a wide range of incomes and challenges.
Over and over in this work and in our lives we’ve seen that stigma, conscious and unconscious bias, and structural barriers keep people from benefiting from opportunities and resources that should be available to them. In response, we have developed strategies and techniques to overcome these obstacles. Together we bring decades of experience in community organizing, organizational development, training facilitation, and advocating for ourselves and others to survive and thrive.
Kendra Colburn
Shela Linton
Deb Witkus
Workshop #4 – Employment in Recovery Part 2
Moderator:
Jolinda Laclair, Director Drug Prevention Policy – State of Vermont
Jolinda is Governor Scott’s Director of Drug Prevention Policy with oversight and management of Vermont’s Opioid Coordination Council which was established by the Governor’s second Executive Order on January 5, 2017. The Council is charged with leading and strengthening Vermont’s response to the opiate crisis by ensuring full interagency and intra-agency coordination between state and local governments in the areas of prevention, treatment, recovery and law enforcement activities. Prior to this role, Jolinda was Deputy Secretary for the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets, State Director of USDA Rural Development for VT & NH, and State Director for U.S. Senator Jim Jeffords.
Panelists:
Gary DeCarolis, Executive Director – Turning Point Center of Chittenden County
Mr. De Carolis has been the President and founder, Center for Community Leadership (2002-2013), a national consulting firm that specialized in issues of leadership development, policy creation and systems of care. Author of A View from the Balcony: Leadership Challenges in Systems of Care and various other monographs/guides/tool kits and columns, related to system change, strategic planning, leadership, and system of care infrastructure development. Mr. De Carolis has an extensive background in designing, building and administering community-based systems of services and supports with over 25 years of hands-on leadership experience at the federal, state, and local government level. He served as Deputy Commissioner for the Vermont Department of Mental Health & Developmental Disabilities from 1988 to 1993; Branch Chief, Federal Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration from 1993 to 2002. He has received major federal/national awards in recognition of his outstanding service and leadership in human services, including two Vice-Presidential Hammer Awards for government innovations and the first National Wraparound Award for changing public policy to promote Wraparound. He served three terms on the Burlington, Vermont City Council.
Mickey Wiles, CEO – Working Fields LLC – See above
Hugh Bradshaw, Employment Services Manager -Vocational Rehab Division, State of Vermont
Hugh Bradshaw is the Employment Services Manager for VocRehab Vermont, currently based in Waterbury, VT. Prior to joining VocRehab he was the Executive Director of the Vermont Association of Business, Industry and Rehabilitation (VABIR), a statewide non-profit dedicated to the employment of Vermonters with disabilities.
Mr. Bradshaw supported the development and implementation of the Agency of Human Services’ Creative Workforce Solutions initiative, a statewide collaborative of employment programs working to provide quality staffing services to the Vermont business community. In addition to his work here in Vermont, Hugh has also been partnering with the Institute for Community Inclusion at UMASS Boston to replicate the Vermont Progressive Employment model in five states. Progressive Employment is a continuum of options for employers to meet, assess and ultimately hire candidates with various barriers to employment.
Christine Johnson, Executive Director – Chittenden County Opioid Alliance
Christine Johnson is the Executive Director of the Chittenden County Opioid Alliance. She enjoys working across systems and sectors to address the issues facing our communities in Vermont and knows we’re all in this together. She believes in the power of connection to overcome the isolation of addiction.
Workshop #5 – Managing the Millennial Workforce
Luke Stafford, CEO – Mondo Media Works
Luke Stafford owns Mondo Mediaworks, Inc., a digital marketing agency specializing in content development for the web. He earned a BA in Journalism at Saint Michael’s College. After landing in Brattleboro with his wife, an artist, he worked in the marketing department at Mount Snow until 2009. He then founded Mondo, and in the eight years since it has grown into a 17-person shop. The company’s Values Statement is to build its surrounding community through economic development. It is proudly a certified B Corporation (“B-Corp”), which are for-profit companies that meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.
Luke also sits on the board of Southeastern Vermont Economic Development Strategies (SeVEDS).
Workshop #6 – Class in the Workplace
Equity Solutions
The Equity Solutions team is a cross-class collaborative of teachers, trainers, social workers, community organizers, consultants, business owners, and directors of organizations. We bring expertise from our work to address inequality, as well as from our lived experiences as people who are or have been living in poverty. Our expertise also comes from our membership in a community with a wide range of incomes and challenges.
Over and over in this work and in our lives we’ve seen that stigma, conscious and unconscious bias, and structural barriers keep people from benefiting from opportunities and resources that should be available to them. In response, we have developed strategies and techniques to overcome these obstacles. Together we bring decades of experience in community organizing, organizational development, training facilitation, and advocating for ourselves and others to survive and thrive.
Kendra Colburn
Shela Linton
Deb Witkus
