Meet Our Leaders
President- Steve Maul
Steve Maul is the Chief Learning and Strategy Officer for the TAS Group. His responsibilities include all aspects of instructional design, development and delivery within the firm as well as developing and leveraging new technologies, platforms and modes for improving learning effectiveness in client organizations. He manages a team of project managers, instructors, designers and consultants in the delivery of programs and services to TAS Group clients.
President-Elect - Richard Fletcher
Richard Fletcher, CHT is Sr. Director, Learning and Organizational Development for Zaxby’s Franchising, a franchisor of gourmet chicken restaurants with 525+ locations and 20000 employees throughout the Southeast. He has been with Zaxby’s since 2003. Richard has responsibilities for overseeing the structures, systems, and processes within the organization to improve organizational effectiveness and is also responsible for identifying, recommending and implementing short and long term strategy for design development and delivery of leadership, team-related, professional, and interpersonal skills development programs.
Richard has over 25 years of executive level experience in sales, operations, organizational development and training with other national companies such as Wolf Camera, Zaxby’s and Sprint PCS. Richard is a national member of ASTD and VP Special and Geographic Interest Groups for ASTD Atlanta. He is an active member of the Council for Hotel and Restaurant Trainers (CHART) and Regional Director for the CHART’s Atlanta Regional Training Forum.
Richard received a Bachelor of Science degree from Auburn University. He is a certified EQ-I®, EQ-360® administrator and has received the Certified Hospitality Trainer (CHT) certification from CHART. When he isn’t busy developing people, he loves hitting the links and traveling. Asked to choose his favorite Zaxby’s menu item, he hesitates since he likes them all. "But if I have to pick, I’d go with the Kickin' Chicken Sandwich!"
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Vice President of Community Involvement - Jennifer Williams
Jennifer Williams currently serves as the 2012 Vice President of Community Involvement. The Community Involvement team supports metro Atlanta non-profits with Training & Development resources to increase the workplace readiness skills of their staffs and clients. ASTD has developed strategic key partnerships with Habitat for Humanity, Goodwill, and the Atlanta Community Food Bank.
Jennifer is a Sales Force Effectiveness Trainer at Georgia Pacific. She is responsible for managing the entry-level sales professional new hire onboarding program as well as designing and developing e-learning platforms for external, distributor sales teams.
Prior to joining Georgia Pacific, she was the Director of Organizational Learning and Leadership Development for Insurance House. She has also served as an Organizational Development Consultant for the State of Georgia and a Sales Effectiveness and Leadership Develop consultant for several Fortune 500 companies. Jennifer has been an active leader in the local community as an advocate for adult learning and education. Other interests include skiing, traveling and most outdoor adventures.
Jennifer received her Bachelor of Science in Marketing from Hampton University in 1990 and a Masters of Instructional Technology from Georgia State University in 2007.
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Vice President of Communications - Sarah Gilbert
Sarah Gilbert is a workplace learning professional in instructional design, facilitation, and implementation. She specializes in e-learning development and social media communications. For the past two years, she has organized and deployed the communications strategy for the ASTD Greater Atlanta Chapter's CPLP Study Group. In 2011, she used this strategy to support an asynchronous multi-chapter CPLP Study Network. Sarah is also contributing to a chapter-wide communications plan to improve the connection to members using various forms of social media: Facebook: Greater Atlanta Chapter of ASTD | twitter: @astdatlanta #astdatl | Linkedin: ASTD Greater Atlanta
Sarah was published in ASTD’s The Book of Road-Tested Activities by Elaine Biech, and is now working with Darin Harley as a contributor to an upcoming book on social media best practices. She has over 12 years of experience in training and development, project management, and call center consulting. She has a BSBM, MBA, and is studying for the CPLP.
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Vice President of Finance - Craig Goodwin
Craig Goodwin has been a learning professional for over 23 years as an employee of Rollins, Inc. He has experience as a training specialist and training manager before assuming his current position as Senior Director, Rollins University. In this position, Craig has primary responsibility for evaluating Rollins University’s processes in relation to best practice and leveraging best practice strategies to improve organizational and work-group performance.
Craig is credentialed as a Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP). He currently serves as Vice President, Finance, for the Atlanta Chapter of the ASTD; committee member for the Chapter’s Corporate Training SIG, and Education Committee co-chairman for the Georgia Pest Control Association (GPCA). He is also a national member of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) and the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI).
Craig is a frequent speaker for the Georgia Pest Control Association. He has also presented at many other local, state, and national conferences including the Purdue Conference, Texas A&M Conference, LearnShare Conference, Training Leadership Summit, and the Annual Training Conference.
Craig graduated from the University of Illinois with a B.S. in Chemistry. He received an MBA from the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York.
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Vice President of Marketing - Leigh Anne Lankford
Leigh Anne Lankford has over 19 years’ experience in the fields of instructional design, project management, performance consulting, eLearning, and facilitation. She specializes in blended learning solutions designs. Previously, as a learning professional at the Federal Reserve System, ADP, National Vision, and GE Capital Card Services, Leigh Anne held a wide range of roles including National Trainer, Instructional Writer, Training Project Manager, Performance Technologist, and Performance Development Manager. She has led the development of many performance improvement projects. As a training project manager, she has managed diverse teams, vendors, and turn-key operations. As a consultant, she has worked with clients in government, homeland security, finance, software development, telecommunications, healthcare, and service industries. She founded Activity Spice – an online eLearning activity generator that was since sold to an Authoring Tool Company. She also founded revuuIT – an online storyboard feedback gathering tool. She has served as a Relationship Manager for TrainingPros in Atlanta for the past four years bringing consultants together with corporate clients.
Leigh Anne has a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management and a Master’s degree in Human Resource Development. She has won three bronze Telly Awards for her work in training video development. She has been published in ISPI’s PerformanceXpress several times. She has served as a Brandon Hall Learning Award Judge. She has also been awarded the Georgia State University award for Distinguished Contribution to the Application of HRD in the Workplace.
Leigh Anne served several years as co-chair for the Atlanta ASTD Technology-Based Learning Special Interest Group and one year as the ASTD Atlanta VP of Member Services. She is currently serving as the 2011 Vice President of Marketing.
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Vice President of Member Services - Cecil Fricano
Cecil Fricano currently serves as a Senior Strategic Relationship Manager at Harvard Business Publishing. In this role, she works with organizations to achieve their strategic goals around Talent Management, Leadership Development, Change Leadership and People Management leveraging the thought leadership of the Harvard Business School.
She served as VP, Community Involvement for the Greater Atlanta Chapter of ASTD for 2010 and 2011. Creating great opportunities for volunteers/members of the Chapter to learn and develop others has been her passion with ASTD Greater Atlanta.
Over the past 20+ years, Cecil has worked with several organizations focusing on learning and people development. She began her career at Thomson Learning and moved into the eLearning corporate market in 2000 with companies such as Global Knowledge and SkillSoft. As a Regional Manager at Thomson, she successfully implemented new training and change management programs to help achieve growth in shifting business environments.
Cecil graduated from the University of South Carolina with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration.
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Vice President of Programs - David Sample
David Sample has over 18 years of experience as Learning Leader responsible for national learning and development initiatives and mission critical talent development programs. Lead visionary in charge of change management, standardized procedures and web-based information systems/tools that facilitate the growth and development of human capital. Highly recognized top performer and strategic thinker for business learning processes that improve compliance, facilitate learning and drive measurable results. Serving as a Senior Learning Executive with Macy’s, he was recognized for building large cross functional teams responsible for driving successful change and learning solutions through the companies 10 year growth and consolidation effort.
David has a Bachelor’s in History. He has won numerous awards for identifying and driving business critical results through learning solutions. He works with non-profits leveraging his experience in developing business driving human solutions though the design and implementation of more effective organizational structures. He has 18 years of volunteer experience in the Atlanta community supporting organizations who work to improve the lives of children, the hungry and the natural environment. In 1997, he was recognized as Partner’s in Time Volunteer of the Year for leading the support of Elaine Clark center where he and his team contributed 1200 hours. Since Spring 2010, David has served as the Manager Vendor Relationships supporting Leigh Anne Lankford, ASTD V.P. Marketing. In addition to his service to ASTD, he also serves as BOD President of a faith-based community organization.
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Vice President of Professional Development - David Gates
David Gates has invested more than 20 years experiencing and honing his craft of strategic talent development. He currently serves as Director of Training and Development for Manheim - A Cox Enterprises Company. In this role, David’s focus is to lead a group of dynamic learning professionals to develop talent, processes, and programs that align human capital strategy with organizational goals.
In September, David will launch a Post-Secondary Educational Strategic Alliance at Manheim to reinforce Manheim’s commitment to talent development in the midst of the organizations largest transformation in its history. Partnering with 5 University’s will provide a range of educational and professional development opportunities for all US Manheim employees.
Prior to Manheim, David led an OD & Learning Group with Ryder System in Miami, Fl. There he took the” little red school house” to a strategic OD function where he influenced and was a co-architect for Talent Management making it a critical function of the organization. Within the spectrum of TM he helped reshape culture and philosophy about organic Leadership Development for all levels of the organization. He either led or was part of numerous initiatives building a TM system aligned with business strategy & goals, improved client experiences and relationships which motivated, inspired, and engaged talent to achieve their professional goals.
David is a member of the National and local ASTD Atlanta Chapter, and serves as a committee member for the Learning Leaders SIG launched earlier this year. During David’s membership of Fort Lauderdale’s ASTD Chapter, he received an Honorable Mention for "Champions of Workforce Learning" for an innovative approach to Leadership Development.
David volunteers in the local community as a way to give back to others; he co-chairs and contributes in various associations.
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Vice President of SIGS and GIGS - Doug Samuels
Doug Samuels is the managing partner and principal consultant at flexOD, a talent management company he founded in 2007. His company helps client’s improve their bottom line by connecting the dots between a company’s vision/mission/values/business strategy and their human capital systems. Their programs focus on improving employee engagement, succession planning, and leadership bench strength and use the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence as a process framework.
He has been a member of ASTD Atlanta for five years. He is thrilled with the successful direction taken by the chapter’s great leadership over the last several years. He wants to contribute to what he considers the backbone of the chapter, its SIG/GIG programs. Previous SIG/GIG leadership has taken these important programs to new heights. His vision is to continue that trajectory.
Doug’s professional career in learning and development has taken him around the world. After flying KC-135s (Boeing 707) for many years, he served as a master instructor at the USAF’s navigator training school and later created and delivered the military’s first software training program. He was selected to direct the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Ada Software Engineering Education and Training Program, created to ensure the Ada programming language was used in all mission-critical software across the military. He received the DOD Meritorious Medal for his efforts.
Previously, Doug served as the Director, Training and Development in a Fortune 50 company and Director, Organization Development at a burgeoning Fortune 1000 company. He holds a BS, Mathematics from Valdosta State College, a BS, Computer Science from Chapman University, an MEd, Adult Education from the University of Southern Mississippi, a BA, Psychology and MS, Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Valdosta State University
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Vice President of Technology - Larry Brambrut
Larry Brambrut is the Creative Leader and founder of VeryMobileApps, a mobile application development company. Larry’s business specializes in developing applications for iPhone and iPad with an emphasis on business to business, promotional, educational, and game applications. He has over 30 years experience in technical writing, training delivery and development and software development. Larry is currently designing a mobile learning platform for various mobile devices which will incorporate e-learning technologies and be customizable for individual businesses.
Larry is a web master for ASTD Atlanta, volunteers for the Cobb Senior Centers teaching Introduction to PC and is part of the ASTD team volunteering at Habitat for Humanity on computer training. Larry also developed the ASTD ACE iPhone app for the ASTD Atlanta summer conference 2011.
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2012 Board of Directors
Chair
Susan Greathead
Senior Advisors
Steve Kapaun
Don Bolen
David Kuhl
Current Officers
Steve Maul - President
Richard Fletcher - President Elect
Mark Myette, CPLP - Immediate Past President
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