Maria did an amazing job of creating and facilitating our staff retreat. Not only were her ideas terrific, but she was able to intuit the complex group dynamics at work during the retreat. She pulled me aside and suggested that we shift gears, and take a different approach in order to address the dynamics. We followed her advice, with fabulous results. I can’t recommend her enough.
Tiela Chalmers
Chief Executive Officer
Alameda County Bar Association and
Volunteer Legal Services Corporation
Since the moment I met Maria, she has been a source of rich information and thought-filled inspiration. I’ve had the pleasure of learning from and working with Maria as a workshop leader. Her ability to hold space, thoughtfully read an audience, and a create trust-filled environment in which all participants feel heard and validated was incredible to witness. Maria brings humor, effective storytelling, and adaptive facilitation experience to her craft as a workshop leader. She was prepared and flexible each step of the way, and as a result, my cohort of participants benefitted greatly. We walked away from our training prepared to incorporate the tools learned into our everyday practice.
Masharika Prejean Maddison
Rockwood Leadership Institute Alumnus
Maria provided a series of 6 management training sessions for our organization, covering topics ranging from coaching skills to conflict styles to performance evaluations. Maria has a very engaging teaching style that incorporates just the right balance of expert advice, anecdotes, and class participation – You leave feeling that every minute of your training time has been well-utilized. We had a classroom of managers facing very different challenges and everyone from the Executive Director to the Transportation Manager left feeling that they had the tips and tools they needed to transform their management style. Because her workshops allow for a lot of participation and one-on-one time working with colleagues, our organization also found that it was a great bonding experience for our managers. Her training was so well-received that we plan to incorporate it into our training plan on an ongoing basis.
Leslie Bacho, Chief Operating Officer, SF/Marin Food Bank
Maria does a wonderful job facilitating, Maria. Each time she works with us, I marvel at the things she does and I make a note to myself to mimic them when I’m facilitating.
John Fong, Associate Director, Chinese for Affirmative Action
The NCEO is a hard-working, highly productive organization. Our staff’s passion and dedication to high standards led to inevitable conflicts that sometimes slowed us down and damaged our quality of work life. We invited Maria to help us build better processes, defuse lingering tension, and create a culture that wouldn’t “back slide.” We are delighted with her. She is a pleasure to work with, built warm and open connections to each of our staff members despite their very different styles, and leaves us better able to manage ourselves.
Loren Rogers, Executive Director, National Center for Employee Ownership
Selected Client List 2014 (links to all these orgs)
- ACLU (San Diego & Los Angeles)
- Alameda County Bar Association
- Asian Pacific Island Wellness Center
- Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality (AACRE)
- Bend The Arc – Selah Program
- Build it Green
- Chinatown Community Development Corporation
- Chinese for Affirmative Action
- California Immigrant Policy Center (CIPC)
- Disability Rights of CA
- National Center for Employee Ownership
- PolicyLink
- Presente.org
- San Francisco Foundation
- San Francisco/Marin Food Bank
- San Francisco Zen Center
- Services, Immigrant Rights & Education Network: SIREN
- St. Vincent de Paul (San Francisco)