ABOUT US // Bios
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Dr. Eric Wolterstorff, Founder and PresidentDr. Wolterstorff leads Shifting Culture's team in working with leaders. For the past five years he has worked with businesses, non-profit organizations and universities to move past psychological and organizational roadblocks to reach their goals. With over 25 years experience in the field of trauma, interpersonal dynamics and organizational performance, Dr. Wolterstorff is an internationally recognized speaker and trainer for professionals, organizations and religious and cultural groups. Early in his career, as a consultant in Illinois, Dr. Wolterstorff helped the CEO of an industrial supply firm reverse an eight-year slide and put the company back into the black. In the 1990s, Wolterstorff's experiences working with upset people led him to study psychology, sociology and organizational dynamics, deepening his leadership and consulting skills. He earned his PhD in analyzing the behavior of groups in stressful, threatening or traumatic environments. |
Elizabeth Weiland, Marketing Director
Elizabeth Weiland leads Shifting Culture in strategic marketing and business consulting services. With more than 23 years of international business experience Ms. Weiland brings a depth of management, marketing, and cross cultural expertise.
Her prior positions include:
Director of Global Marketing for offices in 10 European and Asia Pacific countries. Ms. Weiland spearheaded multi-national sales teams to provide solutions for companies such as Proctor & Gamble, IBM, Bank Paribas, Philips Electronics and HSBC.
As Vice President for a nonprofit Association, Ms. Weiland was responsible for its financial turnaround and organizational development.
Working as Director of Client Services for an Irish based company, she opened new markets across Europe and worked with her clients to supply multi-lingual customer service and technical help campaigns for companies across the U.K. and Europe.
Will Ruddick, Advisor & Project Coordinator
Will Ruddick brings advanced analysis and research skills to Shifting Culture.
Will Ruddick has been working as a scientist and technology specialist for the past 10 years. He completed his graduate work in physics researching at the Stanford Linear Accelerator. Resulting from his data analysis and computation skills. Mr. Ruddick founded a Foreign Exchange market investment firm and has used a variety of dynamic processes to enhance and inspire the creativity of leaders and groups. In November, Will leaves for Kenya for two years in the Peace Corps!
William L. Henson, Advisory Board Member
Mr. Henson is responsible for overseeing the diagnosis and delivery of targeted solutions to Shifting Culture's clients. His specialty is in organizational culture and development. After earning a Masters in Organizational Communication Mr. Henson began working for FedEx to develop the company's department of Employee Communications. (The department became rated one of the top five in corporate America.) During 16 years with FedEx he chaired corporate task forces, conducted research and made recommendations on major employee relations issues, assisted in the introduction of new products and services and provided direct communication support to the CEO. After leaving FedEx, Mr. Henson became a principal in The Cimmaron Group, a management consulting firm specializing in organizational assessment, organizational re-invention and leadership training and development. While at the Cimmaron Group Mr. Henson developed and presented modules on various management skills, developed and ran various outdoor experiential learning exercises and was responsible for overall program delivery and product improvement. Over the last several years Mr. Henson has worked for a variety of non-profit organizations assisting each in developing it's mission/vision, products and services as well as basic internal operating methods and practices.
Michael Brown, Advisory Board Member
Nominated by President George W. Bush to several Homeland Security positions, Michael D. Brown was twice confirmed by the United States Senate. Mr. Brown oversaw and managed more than 13,000 full and part time employees and a $12 billion budget of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Flood Insurance Administration, the U.S. Fire Administration, the National Disaster Medical System, the Nuclear Incident Response Teams, the Domestic Emergency Support Team, the Office of National Security Coordination and the Office of International Affairs. He also served on the Department?s Investment Review Board overseeing the $41 billion budget and investment decisions of the Department.
Saj Razvi, Associate - Communication and Facilitation
Saj Razvi is a trainer for Shifting Culture. He is a psychotherapist specializing in the effects of trauma on addictive compulsivity, and the cross-cultural dimensions of stress and trauma on individuals and families. He is bicultural, born in Hyderabad, India, raised Muslim, and immigrated to the United States as a child.
Mr. Razvi obtained an MA from St. John's College in the intellectual and spiritual traditions of Western and Eastern civilizations. He recently completed a second MA degree in psychology at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. His Masters thesis was a case study examining the effects of cross-cultural dynamics on Muslim American identity. Prior to undertaking this graduate work, Mr. Razvi was an IT consultant with IBM.
Maxine Gower, Associate - Communications and Facilitation Team
For the past sixteen years Maxine Gower, LCSW, NCPsyP, has worked as a mental health writer and Clinical Social Worker on mental health teams in mental health settings in New York City, at the Mental Health Center of Boulder County, People's Clinic and Compassionate Care, Boulder. Maxine currently practices psychotherapy and psychoanalysis with adolescent and adult individuals, couples and families in her private practice. In addition, Maxine also supervises therapists, teaches masters students in the Contemplative Psychotherapy Department of Naropa University and will be supervising for the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work in Fall 2007. Maxine has completed 12 years of post-masters training at the Colorado Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies and has earned national psychoanalytic certification.
Michael Chapman, Associate - Performance Improvement
Michael Chapman is responsible for organizational assessment and performance improvement at Shifting Culture.
As an eight-time Malcolm Baldrige Examiner and founder of the Colorado Performance Excellence State quality award, he is an expert in organizational effectiveness, strategic planning, project management, and statistical techniques. Former clients include Motorola, IBM, StorageTek, the Colorado Department of Health, and the Colorado Springs School District 11.
For over 20 years, Mr. Chapman held leadership positions with companies such as James River, Witco Chemical, and Celestial Seasoning. He is an adjunct faculty member for Regis University business school, and was creator of TQM certification programs for both the University of Colorado and the University of Phoenix.
Mr. Chapman is a board member for the Rocky Mountain Quality Conference and is a senior member of the American Society for Quality where he has served as chapter chair and country councilor to Sweden.
Mr. Chapman received a Bachelor degree in Chemical Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration. He is also a Certified Quality Engineer, a Certified Quality Auditor, an RAB and IQA Certified ISO 9000 lead assessor, and holds a Certification in Error Management.
Barbara Bennett, Advisory Board Member
Barbara Bennett is responsible for business alignment and integration services for Shifting Culture.
As a former IBM executive, Ms. Bennett managed projects of varied complexity and size for clients such as Johnson & Johnson, NationsBanc, Xcel Energy and Skandia Sweden valued up to $1.8 billion. These projects involved cultural transformation, disaster recovery, and business process re-engineering. She received over 20 awards for leadership, business unit performance and business improvements.
Ms. Bennett has served on three non-profit boards and is active in the community.
Ms. Bennett received an AB cum laude from Franklin and Marshall College and an MS from Michigan State University in mathematics. She also holds a certificate in financial management from The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
Zoë Zimmermann, MA, LPC, Associate - Communication and Facilitation
Ms. Zimmermann is a specialist in conflict resolution, group facilitation, communication and interpersonal skills education. She is a long-time psychotherapist in private practice, specializing in trauma recovery, personal and career transitions, and relationship therapy. She practices and teaches Process Work, a psychological method of working with the unconscious dynamics that create conflict in families, organizations and communities. Prior clients include religious organizations, health-related institutions and family businesses.
Linda Irwin, Associate - Strategic Analysis and Planning
Linda has extensive experience in growing organizations through strategic analysis and planning, re-building sales groups, marketing program development, and linking customer needs into functional activities. Her experience includes 10 years as president of a direct marketing firm, management positions in a wide variety of organizations, and consulting. Past clients include Rockwell/Boeing, International School of Information Management, United States Space Foundation, and Scholastic Corporation.
Christina Oshier, Associate - Communication and Facilitation
Christina Oshier is a trainer for Shifting Culture. Ms. Oshier is a psychotherapist specializing in the resolution of trauma and stress and a project assistant for International Trauma Consultants, a program of the Jefferson Center for Mental Health. She received an BA in psychology from Middlebury College in Vermont, and an MA in Counseling Psychology from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. Ms. Oshier has completed a 125 hour post graduate training in the resolution of trauma and stress. Before commencing her graduate work, she worked for 5 years in advertising account management in Los Angeles and San Francisco, where she gained valuable business experience, while realizing that she wanted to make more of a difference in the world. Working in her current field offers her a chance to work towards resolution of pain and suffering while enjoying a more peaceful lifestyle. She enjoys traveling, cooking for large groups of people, and hiking in the beautiful Colorado mountains.
Mike Rakotz, M.D., Advisory Board Member
Dr. Rakotz is a diplomat of the American Board of Family Practice. From 1998 to 2007, Dr. Rakotz has been a Clinical Faculty member for the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. For the past 10 years, he has also served as Medical Director for the United Medical Center of Lyons. In August,2007, he moved to Illinois to start Highland Park Primary Care, and join Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine's clinical faculty as an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Family Medicine. In 1994, Dr. Rakotz worked at the Yukon Kuskoquim Delta Regional Hospital in Bethel Alaska, treating native Alaskans. He has also spent countless hours performing charitable medical work in rural Jamaica, as well as in the front range of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. In 2000 Dr. Rakotz was one of fifty physicians in the United States to receive the AMA Glaxo Wellcome Emerging Leaders in Medicine award. Dr. Rakotz also served as a delegate for the Colorado Medical Society, was a board member for the Boulder Valley IPA and the Boulder County Medical Society, and formerly served as board member and medical consultant to Blue Sky Bridge, an advocacy group for families and victims of child abuse. He was selected to participate in the Colorado Physician's Congress for Healthcare Reform, a small group of Colorado physician's chosen to help design and plan implementation strategies for universal healthcare coverage for all Coloradan's. Dr. Rakotz received his BS in Freshwater and Marine Ecology and Environmental Studies from the University of Michigan and his MD from Rush Medical College in Chicago. He did his family practice residency at Sparrow Hospital/Michigan State University, and has been Board Certified in Family Medicine since 1997.
Rich Pinto, Advisory Board Member
Mr. Pinto is a certified mediator specializing in workplace conflict resolution. For four years, he worked with juveniles and adults through the Boulder County Justice Center as a Probation Associate, and was a volunteer mediator for Community Mediation Services in Boulder, Colorado. With over 25 years experience in the hospitality industry, Mr. Pinto is now a consultant to that industry as well as a full-time investor. His experience includes the management of small, private hotels as well as large corporate resort facilities. As Operations Vice President for the Marriott Corporation, he was responsible for 52 hotels that generated over $200 million in annual revenue. In the early 1980's, he opened The Charter, the first resort hotel managed by Vail Associates in Beaver Creek, Colorado. Mr. Pinto earned his BA in English Literature at the State University of New York at Binghamton and completed graduate work in teaching at Columbia University in New York City. He also completed a year of graduate study in Consciousness Studies at JFK University in Orinda, California.
