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BOARD MEMBER BIOS:

Fran McTernan is a trainer and coach who has a passion for helping people have easier conversations - with their boss, coworker, spouse, child, friend - so they can get what they need without the stress.

Fran spent 26 years in the telecom industry, eleven of those years managing a team of technical resources. She’s spent nine years logging over 900 hours volunteering on a crisis and suicide hotline, supporting callers from New Jersey and beyond. Fran’s been a trainer with her volunteer organization, CONTACT We Care, since 2010, delivering training to both new volunteers and community members several times a year.

Fran has recognized that, while our lives are literally built on the conversations we have each day, most of us need support at some point with learning how to turn awkward or difficult conversations into easier conversations. Fran uses her listening and coaching strengths to support her clients with leadership and communications skills that will help them move forward, personally and professionally.

Fran achieved her Certified Master Behavioral Analyst status in 2012, and is skilled at leveraging the DISC behavioral assessment for her clients. She’s currently completing coaching certifications with Newfield Networks and The International Coach Federation, both of which she expects to be awarded by mid-2013.


Andrea Harvey, a professionally certified coach, has 25 years of diverse, global experience as an executive coach, leadership, and organizational development consultant. Her experience includes: coaching executives to develop critical skills; assisting new leaders to integrate into organizations or positions; strengthening leadership team effectiveness; and conducting individual/team assessments.

Andrea heads her own practice, Andrea Harvey Associates LLC, providing executive coaching, leadership development, and personal transition consulting. Andrea has coached hundreds of clients across the globe—from North and South America and Asia to Australia.

Andrea’s coaching style is warm, goal-focused, and honest, and she has a down-to-business style that has the ability to make the complex easily understandable. She believes that through deep and thoughtful questioning, candid feedback, and constructive action steps, extremely successful personal and professional outcomes will result, including: enhancing effectiveness as leaders through thinking more strategically; improving their interpersonal, communication and influence skills; evolving how they think about leadership; and, finally, understanding how to optimize the performance of themselves, their teams, and their organizations.


Tony Calabrese is the founder of Absolute Transitions, LLC, a Certified Professional Coach and an Energy Leadership Index Master Practitioner. A life coach, Tony enjoys working with clients who are transitioning from one long time career to another, or are ready to leave their first career and pursue their life’s dream as part of a second career act. Coaching is a second career act for Tony, after spending 30 successful years in middle management at a large corporate financial services firm. He resides in Maplewood, NJ, with his wife Carolina.


Deborah O’Brien-Wojdan brings extensive experience to her work in executive coaching and organization effectiveness. As an executive coach, Debbie has been a trusted advisor to leaders for over ten years, enabling them to enhance their performance in a wide range of areas, including leadership, communication, leading organizational change, organizational alignment and developing high performance teams. Within EDS’ Executive Coaching Program, she successfully worked with senior executives responsible for $100M to $1B+ of business to increase self awareness, change limiting behaviors, and increase their overall effectiveness.

Debbie established and managed the Executive External Coaching Program for Hewlett Packard to address gaps in leadership behaviors and skills, while focusing on business based outcomes for 4,000+ executives.

Prior to her coaching work, Debbie spent more than 15 years at EDS leading client projects and consulting on human performance and talent-related challenges varying in size and complexity to successfully meet business objectives.


Brooke Manino is the founder and President of Advanced Leadership Performance Strategies, LLC, a coaching and leadership development practice focused on transforming individuals, small businesses, and leadership teams to achieve superior strategic business outcomes. Each program is customized to the special needs of the client, ranging from one-to-one coaching to overall strategic organizational design, as well as performance and change management.  Brooke brings extensive coaching experience from her corporate career to guide her clients through the ALPS Coaching program. This expertise, combined with her training at the FastTrack Coaching Academy, enables her to leverage strategies for excelling in leadership along with practical application of essential tools and techniques to help her clients achieve their desired success.


With over thirty years experience in hospitality management and training, R.J. “Mac” MacBain launched his company Above the Crest Coaching. His client base is spread throughout the United States and Canada.

Utilizing his coaching skills, Mac helps his clients maximize their ability to make difficult decisions in their life, which will result in the achievement of both their personal and professional goals. He empowers individuals to become more efficient and effective in turning their goals into achievements. While helping his clients avoid blind spots, Mac also helps them find new perspectives to improve their self awareness leading to improved performance and results.

Many of his clientele are successful executives whom he assists to push through to the next level of achievement.


Lynn Schaber, ACC, is a leadership and executive coach based in Middletown, NJ, who works with managers and their teams to bring their “A” game to the table. Her clients achieve improved performance in their ability to manage themselves, their teams and their strategy. Lynn’s deep listening style and insights support clients to make significant and often surprising shifts in their work and life.

Lynn is an Associate Certified Coach (ACC), has been a member of the ICF-NJ for seven years, and served on the ICF-NJ board as President in 2008 and 2009, as well as serving on the Educational and Professional Development (EPD) committee in other years.


Jennifer L. Smith is a Leadership Coach and Facilitator.  She is the founder of Growth Potential Consulting, which is a coaching, consulting, and training company helping clients achieve sustainable results.  Jennifer has been coaching leaders in Fortune 500 companies, small as well as medium businesses, and not-for-profit organizations for 10 years. She has a passion for working with leaders who want to take their leadership to the next level by leveraging their strengths, as well as exploring ways to build stronger connections with colleagues that result in achieving results.

In addition to coaching, Jennifer has more than 15 years experience in designing and facilitating programs in areas such as leadership development, diversity/inclusion strategies, succession planning, change management, strategy development, performance management, and process improvement.     

Jennifer has a BS degree in Accounting from Grambling State University, is a graduate of General Electric's Financial Management Leadership Program (FMLP), and is a Certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt.  She also holds an MS degree in Organization Development and Human Resources from the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School.  She is a Certified Professional Coach and has been credentialed by the International Coach Federation.

Her question for you is: "What action have you taken in the past 30 days to realize your potential?  Turn your dreams into reality by taking action today.”


Angelo Agrafiotis, founder and president of AAIM Life Coaching, LLC, specializes in helping HR Managers and clients tackle HR and morale morass issues. The end results are restoration of peace of mind, purpose, confidence and loyalty in the workplace. 

Angelo has over 40 years’ experience in all facets of Human Resources Management as a senior human resource executive. He has recognized accomplishments in the areas of employee relations, performance management, talent acquisition, and compensation and benefits to include implementation of total rewards programs. He has participated in two mergers and acquisition conversions. Angelo also has experience in expatriate administration having lived in South America as Director of Human Resources for Latin America for five years for PepsiCo International, and has traveled extensively throughout the region and Europe. Prior to founding AAIM Life Coaching,

Angelo is a member of several professional organizations including the International Coaching Federation (ICF), the ICF-New Jersey, and the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), and is a member of the North Jersey Penn State Alum Assoc., and the Rutgers Alumni organization. He is also a member of the North Jersey Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Angelo has been involved with the Boy Scouts of America, and served as Scoutmaster for four years for BSA Troop 44 in West Milford, NJ. He has also held elder positions and chaired various committees at the West Milford Presbyterian Church as well as The Smoke Rise Church in Kinnelon, N.J. Angelo and his wife, Margery, are currently members of the Jacksonville Chapel in Lincoln Park, NJ, where he also sings in the Chapel choir.

Carrie Greene is a speaker, trainer, coach and author of the book Chaos to Cash: An Entrepreneurs Guide to Eliminating Chaos, Overwhelm and Procrastination so You Create Ultimate Profit.

Carrie spent 15 years working on Wall Street at major brokerage firms and the New York Stock Exchange honing her business and marketing skills before starting CarrieThru. Carrie combined her natural organizational abilities with her strong business background to help entrepreneurs get focused, create structure, and not only make sound business and marketing plans but also implement them. When priorities and action steps are defined, procrastination stops. Carry through to achieve the success and profits you want and deserve!

For free resources and to learn more please visit www.CarrieThru.com.


Lisa Silvershein is a career coach who successfully helps her clients experience success throughout their career. She encourages them to leverage their strengths and achieve their career goals.

Lisa works with people during all stages of their career: students, high potential leaders, women returning to work, people in career transition, and clients who are planning their active retirement. Lisa's clients take focused and progressive action steps that enable them to grow professionally.

Lisa is a Certified Master Coach with a B.A in Psychology and a Masters Degree in Human Resources Management. She began Ark Career Coaching in 2003 and is the author of “It’s YOUR Turn…Do What You Want to Do!” She uses her extensive background and experience to guide people through their careers. She has access to tested coaching techniques, tools, assessments, and strategies that keep her clients on track as they move forward toward achieving their goals.

She has coached employees from companies such as Phillips Van Heusen, Johnson & Johnson, General Motors, Bayer, Merck, and Gallagher Benefit Services.  Lisa remains involved in human resources and is actively involved in planning the Garden State Council SHRM Annual Conference. She has been on NJN News and quoted in the "Courier News," "The Home News Tribune," and "The Star Ledger.”


The Small Business Big Breakthroughs Coach^TM and founder of Achieve It, Inc., Kim Keefe Pisolkar leads clients to make more money and still have the freedom to do the things they love most. Small business owners and department heads in large organizations turn to Kim for inspiration, guidance, and support as they spark new achievements and growth, bridging the gap between what they have and what they really want.

Prior to starting Achieve It, Inc., Kim spent 13 years in human resources and organization development for private and Fortune 100 companies, where she developed and implemented creative solutions to solve organizational and leadership challenges. As a result, her proven Breakthrough CEO system now helps her clients to incorporate structure and systems into their companies, whether they’re running a one-person operation or a multi-layered organization so they can be more confident Chief Executive Officers. Her intuitive, creative and fun approach to seeing things from a new perspective leads her clients to embrace change and quickly move into action so they can finally have the results they’ve been striving for.

Kim is certified through the International Coaching Federation, holds a Master of Arts degree in Human Resources Management from the University of Minnesota and was a contributing author in the Amazon #1 Bestselling Book, “Women Living Consciously.

When Kim isn’t connecting with clients, she’s spending time at home in New Jersey and traveling with her family.


Michael Valentine is a business consultant and executive coach that brings over 30 years of experience working to improve business results for companies in a wide range of sectors. Mike has held senior leadership positions in some of the best run companies in the world in operations and Human Resources. Michael has extensive experience working with teams to develop and implement strategy, managing organizational change initiatives, and developing leadership talent. He also has a solid track record of building team effectiveness and innovating through teaming.

Owner and lead consultant at TrueGrowth Consulting, Michael provides consulting in Strategy, Talent Development, High Performance Teaming and Change Management. Michael is an executive coach with Certifications from the Hudson Institute of Santa Barbara and Case Western Reserve University. Michael’s career spans from military service as a US Naval Officer to diversified manufacturing and service industries. His experience includes assignments from supervisory to executive levels including both international and domestic responsibilities.

Michael received a Juris Doctor (JD) from Temple University School of Law and holds a BA in Political Science from The Citadel the Military College of South Carolina where he also received his commission as a US Naval Officer. He is currently enrolled at Antioch University pursuing a PhD in Leadership and Change.

Mike is married to the love of his life Maria, has two sons, and spends his private moments running with his two rescue dogs Lola and Goliath and training for his next marathon.