Women In Leadership Fall 2016

Creating and Pursuing Pathways for Promotion

Friday, October 21, 2016
8:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. 
Hilton Garden Inn, Levis Commons, Perrysburg, Ohio

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Co-presented by Bowling Green State University and the University of Toledo

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Keynote Presenter:Bonnie Marcus

Bonnie Marcus, Certified Executive Coach, Speaker, Writer and Self-Promotion Expert

Author, The Politics of Promotion:  How High Achieving Women Get Ahead and Stay Ahead

politics of promotion posterAward winning entrepreneur and Forbes and Business Insider contributing writer, Bonnie Marcus, M.Ed., has real conversations for real women about real situations in the workplace today. As the President of Women’s Success Coaching, she assists professional women to successfully position and promote themselves to advance their careers. Her latest book, The Politics of Promotion: How High Achieving Women Get Ahead and Stay Ahead (Wiley, 2015), provides a road map for women to navigate the complexities of their workplace to get the promotion they deserve.

With 20+ years of sales and management experience, Her extensive business background includes CEO of a ServiceMaster company and VP of Sales at Medical Staffing Network and two others national companies in the healthcare and software industries.  She has held executive positions in startup companies and Fortune 500 companies. 
 
Marcus started her corporate career at an entry level position and worked her way up to the top of a national company by using her savvy promotion and relational skills. Her passion is to help other women learn to be sensitive to the culture of their organization, embrace the politics and actively and intentionally move their careers forward with a strategic plan.
 
Forbes.com honored Women’s Success Coaching three years in a row as one of the Top 100 Websites for Professional Women stating, “Women’s Success Coaching weighs on the many building blocks of empowering women in business, from assertive communication to self promotion to sensitivity training.” In 2015, Global Gurus honored Marcus as one of the World’s Top 30 Coaches.
 
In addition to Forbes and Business Insider, Marcus has been published in Entrepreneur, Women in HR, Daily Worth, Reader’s Digest, Intercontinental Finance, Careers in Government, Diversity MBA, Upstart Business Journal, Washington Business Journal, and CIO Magazine. She has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Inc, Huffington Post, Fast Company, Fortune, Psychology Today, Levo League, Huffington Post, Working Mums, Jobs and Career Magazine, and more.
 
She received a BA from Connecticut College and a M.Ed. from New York University. She is an ICF certified executive coach.

Christine Brennan
National sports columnist, USA Today

Christine Brennan is an award-winning national sports columnist for USA Today, a commentator for ABC News, PBS NewsHour, CNN and National Public Radio, a best-selling author and a nationally-known speaker. Twice named one of the country's top 10 sports columnists by the Associated Press Sports Editors, she has covered the last 16 Olympic Games, summer and winter.  

Brennan was the first woman sports writer at The Miami Herald in 1981 and the first woman to cover Washington’s NFL team as a staff writer at The Washington Post in 1985. She was the first president of the Association for Women in Sports Media (AWSM) and started a scholarship-internship program that has supported more than 130 female students over the past two decades.

Brennan is the author of seven books. Her 2006 sports memoir, “Best Seat in the House,” is the only father-daughter memoir written by a sports journalist. Her 1996 national best-seller, “Inside Edge,” was named one of the top 100 sports books of all-time by Sports Illustrated. 

She is a leading voice on some of the most controversial and important issues in sports. Her USA Today column in April 2002 on Augusta National Golf Club triggered the national debate on the club's lack of female members. In December 2002, Sports Illustrated's Golf Plus section named her one of golf's 12 heroes of the year. In August 2012, Brennan broke the news that Augusta National was admitting its first two women members. She also broke the story of the pairs figure skating scandal at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics and the Russian judging scandal at the 2014 Sochi Games.

Brennan earned undergraduate and master's degrees in journalism from Northwestern University. She is a member of the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame and Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism Hall of Achievement. She has received honorary degrees from Tiffin (Ohio) University and the University of Toledo. 

Among Brennan's honors, she was named the 1993 Capital Press Women's "Woman of Achievement;" named the University of North Carolina's 2002 Reed Sarratt Distinguished Lecturer; won the U.S. Sports Academy's Ronald Reagan Award in 2002; won the Jake Wade Award from the College Sports Information Directors of America in 2003; won AWSM's Pioneer Award in 2004; was named Woman of the Year by WISE (Women in Sports and Events) in 2005; received the inaugural Women's Sports Foundation Billie Award for journalism in 2006; won Chi Omega's 2006 Woman of Achievement Award; won Northwestern University's Alumni Service Award in 2007; received Yale University's Kiphuth Medal in 2013 and was named the 2013 Ralph McGill Lecturer at the University of Georgia.  

Both the NCAA and the Women's Sports Foundation honored her in celebrations for the 40th anniversary of Title IX in 2012.

christine brennan

Sheri A. Caldwell, Ph.D., SPHR, SHRM-SCP, CEQC, CIR
Human resource director
Grain Group, The Andersons, Inc
.

Sheri A. Caldwell, Ph.D., is currently the human resource director at the Grain Group at The Andersons, Inc. She has taught undergraduate through Ph.D. level human resource courses at various colleges and is currently teaching at Lourdes University.

Prior to The Andersons, Caldwell worked at Medical Mutual, University of Toledo Physicians, Hickory Farms, the Toledo Zoo, Staples and Key Bank.

She is the 2005 past president of the local HR group, Toledo Area Human Resource Association (TAHRA), now called NOHRA.  She is also on the Board of the Employers’ Association and a former member of the HR Committee for the American Red Cross.  She was inducted in to the Cardinal Stritch High School Hall of Fame, received the 20 Under 40 Leadership Award in 2004 and the Alumni Community Award from BGSU in 2006.

Caldwell has published various articles and is a co-author of the top-selling SHRM-published book “Got A Minute? The 9 Lessons Every HR Professional Must Learn to be Successful (2010)” with Dr. Dale Dwyer and “Got A Solution - HR Approaches to 5 Common and Persistent Business Problems (2014).”

She has her SPHR certification and is a SHRM Senior Certified Professional as well as certified in EQ-I and EQ-360 for Emotional Intelligence, also the subject of her first book, “Developing Emotional Intelligence In Others (2009)” with Dr. Linda Gravett. In March of 2016, Sheri and Linda’s newest book “Learning Agility:  The Impact on Recruitment and Retention” was released.

Caldwell received an undergraduate degree in industrial organization psychology from Bowling Green State University.  She also received her MBA and Ph.D. in Human Resource Development from the University of Toledo, where she taught for 19 years.  

sheri caldwell

Andrew Faas
Management advisor and author

Andrew Faas is a management advisor and author of “The Bully’s Trap – Bullying in the Workplace.” His expertise is in helping organizations create psychologically safe and productive workplaces.

Bully trap imageHe is a former senior executive with Canada’s two largest retailers and now heads the Faas Foundation which looks to find sustainable solutions to current social and economic issues, focusing on health education and medical research. The Faas Foundation is partnering with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Mental Health America and the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence to help organizations create psychologically safe and productive workplaces. 

Faas brings a unique perspective to the topic of workplace bullying in that, early in his career, he was called out as a bully (which he said was life changing), he had transformed many organizations to become psychologically safe and productive and, late in his career, he was retaliated against for blowing the whistle on a corrupt executive. 

Faas has made bullying in the workplace a passion and helping to prevent it and the stress it causes, a reason for being.

andrew faas

Sharon L. Gaber, Ph.D.
President, The University of Toledo

Dr. Sharon L. Gaber began her tenure as the 17th president of The University of Toledo in July 2015. A city and regional planning expert, Gaber came to the UT presidency following six years as provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Arkansas.

At UT, Gaber is focused on elevating the national stature of one of the country’s most comprehensive institutions of higher education through increases in externally funded research, student enrollment and graduation rates, philanthropic support, and the recruitment of leading academic and clinical faculty.

In addition to more than two dozen grants totaling nearly $2 million, Gaber is the author of 40 peer-reviewed articles researching and analyzing regional and urban planning, public policy, and the social dynamics that affect community decision-making.

As president, Gaber serves on the boards for the Toledo Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Regional Growth Partnership.

At Arkansas, Gaber served as a member of the board of directors of the University of Arkansas Fayetteville Campus Foundation, the Washington Regional Medical Center, and Simmons First National Corp. She also was vice chair of the Arkansas Research and Technology Park board of directors.

She led the SEC Provost’s group, a partnership of the chief academic officers of the Southeastern Conference, and is a member of the Urban Affairs Association, the American Planning Association, the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning and the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities.

Prior to Arkansas, she served in multiple roles in the provost’s office at Auburn University; these included interim provost and vice president for academic affairs, senior associate provost, and associate provost for academic administration, as well as an associate dean in the College of Architecture, Design and Construction. Prior to that, she was department chair and assistant chair in community and regional planning at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Gaber, who co-founded the Women’s Commission at the University of Arkansas, was named Academic Woman of the Year at Auburn in 2009 and earned the Professional Planner Distinguished Leadership Award presented by the Alabama Chapter of the American Planning Association.

She earned her bachelor’s degree from Occidental College, a master’s degree from the University of Southern California, and her doctorate in city and regional planning from Cornell University.

sharon gaber

Sam Horn
President of Intrigue Agency

Sam Horn, Tedx speaker and The Intrigue Expert, is a respected positioning and messaging strategist with a 20 plus year track record of results with such clients as Cisco, Fortune 500 Forum, Intel, Capital One, NASA, YPO, Boeing, KPMG, Vistage, the U.S. Navy and Four Seasons Resorts. As president of Intrigue Agency, she has spoken to more than a half million people worldwide and for hundreds of organizations including Governors Assn., American Bankers Association, American Society of Association Executives and the U.S. Embassy in London.

She has been interviewed on network television and radio shows in every major city from New York to LA. Horn has been profiled, quoted or reviewed in dozens of publications including Washington Post, New York Times, Forbes, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Readers Digest and more

She is the author of six books from major publishers that have been translated into seventeen languages; POP!, Tongue Fu!®, Take the Bully by the Horns, Got Your Attention! How to Create Intrigue and Connect with Anyone, What’s Holding You Back? and ConZentrate. 

She is a former Executive Director of the Maui Writers Conference and co-producer of the 2015 Business Book Festival at USA Today Gannett headquarters. Sam Horn is also a book coach and strategic adviser who has helped hundreds of clients crystallize and create quality books that have benefited all involved. 

Working as a presentation/ pitch coach and media training expert she has prepared hundreds of clients for high-stakes communications including TED talks, keynotes, fundraising pitches and investor decks that have scaled their influence and income. She is also a member of the Transformation Leadership Council – an invitation only group of thought leaders in the personal/professional development movement.

Sam horn

Mary Ellen Mazey, Ph.D.
President, Bowling Green State University

Mary Ellen Mazey became the 11th president of Bowling Green State University on July 1, 2011. Prior to assuming the presidency, she served as Provost and Vice-President of Academic Affairs at Auburn University, as Dean of the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University, and as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Wright State University. In 1996-97 she had an Intergovernmental Personnel Assignment and served as Director of the Office of University Partnerships at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. A first-generation college graduate, Dr. Mazey earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from West Virginia University and a Ph.D. in geography from the University of Cincinnati.

President Mazey is deeply committed to student success and to providing a high quality education that leads to long-term career value for students. Her vision for BGSU is focused on building regional, state, national and global partnerships that enhance the student experience, facilities, revenues and ensure that BGSU is positioned in the global marketplace. She is committed to a diverse campus environment that serves all students.

With her emphasis on strategic planning and partnership building, BGSU has partnered with a local hospital for a new student health center, with the State of Ohio for a new crime laboratory, and with North Star Aviation for a new hangar/classroom building. There is an emphasis on providing new classroom space for innovative, new academic programming. The campus has renovated or opened 10 new buildings in the last three years.

Dr. Mazey has served as a consultant on strategic planning and as an evaluator for the Higher Learning Commission. She currently serves on the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA) Board and as Chair of the board for the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA). In addition, she serves on the board of directors of the Toledo Chamber of Commerce and the northwest Ohio Regional Growth Partnership.

mary mazey

Meg Ressner
Principal, Meg Ressner and Associates, LLC

Meg Ressner specializes in leading organizational transitions that optimize organizational performance.  From human resources, sales, customer service, to supply chain operations, she has a proven track record of structuring and leading the performance of organizations to achieve and exceed their objectives. 

Ressner is a recognized change leader with experience in organizational re-design, complex project implementations and process re-engineering--all centered around the integration of people, process and technology.

Meg formerly held the position of vice president, Human Resources Enterprise Organizations at Owens Corning.   In this role she was responsible for all aspects of HR for the Finance & Sourcing, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications and Supply Chain and Technology Solutions organizations.  She was a member of the Global HR Executive Team, reporting to the senior vice president of Human Resources.  

Previously, Ressner served as vice president of human resources for the Composites business, a one billion dollar division of Owens Corning.   She joined Owens Corning in 1981 as a customer service representative for the company’s supply division in Chicago, IL.  While in Chicago, she also held positions in inside and outside sales.   

Ressner has held a variety of assignments including vice president of Global Supply Chain, vice president of Customer Fulfillment, regional sales manager, marketing manager, customer response center manager and assistant product manager.

She earned her undergraduate degree in marketing from the University of Rhode Island in 1981.  

Ressner previously served on the Owens Corning Foundation and the Board of David’s House Compassion, an agency providing services to those with AIDS/HIV in Northwest Ohio. She currently serves on the Board of the Toledo Children’s Hospital Foundation, as the President of the Great Lakes Collaborative for Autism, Chair of the Women’s Initiative of the United Way and is active on the Steering Team of the Toledo Regional Autism Network. 

meg ressner

Paula Russell 
Vice president of human resources, Composite Solutions Business, Owens Corning

Russell joined Owens Corning in 1999 through its finance leadership development program. Later, she shifted her field of focus to HR and served in a variety of human resource leadership positions in the company’s manufacturing, supply chain, corporate IT, and customer service organizations. 

She subsequently accepted responsibility for the design and execution of a global research and development talent strategy. She was a core member associated with a start up of the company’s state-of-the-art technology center in Shanghai, China, and completed an expatriate assignment working directly with Owens Corning’s European R&D center (located in Chambéry, France) where she also served as the business partner for the regional Composites business. 

Following her assignment in France in 2012, Russell was appointed to the role of vice president of HR for Composite Solutions, a two billion dollar business with approximately 7,000 employees around the world.

Russell earned the Senior Professional Human Resource (SPHR) certification through the Human Resource Certification Institute. She attended The Ohio State University where she earned an Executive MBA. She also holds an undergraduate degree in international business and finance from Bowling Green State University.

paula russel

Christine Seiler
Faculty member, Schmidthorst College of Business, BGSU

Christine Seiler, MBA, Ed.S. has been teaching in the marketing department at BGSU for the past 16 years, focusing primarily on professional selling.  She is the faculty advisor to the Women in Business Leadership student organization and the coordinator of the annual Women in Leadership conference. Seiler previously served as the associate director of the Service Marketing Institute and spent over 10 years coaching and preparing sales students to compete successfully in local, regional and national sales competitions.

She is also an organizational and management development consultant, who specializes in helping organizations maximize their productivity through employee development initiatives. Prior to leaving the full-time corporate arena, Seiler was the director of educational services at United Health Partnership in Toledo and the manager of training and development for Hancor, Inc. in Findlay.  

She earned her bachelors and masters degrees of Business Administration from BGSU, and an educational specialist degree from the University of Toledo.

christine seiler

Dana Ullom-Vucelich
Chief human resources and ethics officer, Ohio Presbyterian Retirement Services

Dana Ullom-Vucelich is chief human resources and ethics officer for Ohio’s largest and most experienced not-for-profit continuing care and retirement communities and services.  Ullom-Vucelich has been with Ohio Presbyterian Retirement Services since September 2000. The company serves more than 3,100 employees caring for 73,000 people annually through its wholly owned subsidiaries OPRS Communities and Senior Independence. 

OPRS operates retirement communities, home and community-based services, adult day centers and senior centers. Additionally, through its iPartner affiliates and icaregiver.org website, OPRS extends services to older adults throughout the nation.  Ullom-Vucelich served as vice president of human resources in a hospital setting for 10 years before assuming her current role.

She received her bachelor’s degree from Kent State University and her master’s degree from Webster University in human resources development.  She is also a certified trainer in crucial conversations, crucial confrontations and employee recognition.

Along with her teammates, Ullom-Vucelich won the HR Magazine Innovative Practice Award that was highlighted in SHRM magazine and at the national conference.  She also won the BBB’s Torch Award for Ethics. 

Ullom-Vucelich’s has participated as a panel member at the International Recognition Summit and presented the keynote address for the Ohio Annual Zeta Conference and the Squire, Patton, Boggs Attorney Client Conference. She is a national faculty member at the annual Leading Age conference, and her topics include “Shifting an Organizational Culture” and “Caring Produces Results.”

dana ullom-vucelich

Schedule

8:30 a.m. Welcome
8:45 – 9:25 a.m. Opportunities and Obstacles of a University President

BGSU President Mary Ellen Mazey, Ph.D., and University of Toledo President Sharon Gaber, Ph.D., share opportunities and obstacles faced throughout their career journeys. Christine Brennan, USA Today, will serve as moderator.

9:40 - 10:30 a.m.:  Breakout Session One

Track One – Identifying Pathways to Promotion

Christine Brennan, USA Today writer and author of several books, including "The Best Seat in the House"

Track Two – Creating and Supporting Pathways to Promotion 

Andrew Faas, speaker and author of "The Bully’s Trap"

10:45 - 11:35 a.m.  Breakout Session Two 

Track One – Identifying Pathways to Promotion 

Sam Horn, The Intrigue Expert and author of numerous books including "Got Your Attention?  How to Create Intrigue and Connect with Anyone"

Track Two – Creating and Supporting Pathways to Promotion

Panel of female business leaders from the region will share how they forged paths within their organizations and how their organizations created and supported pathways for women. Moderated by Christine Seiler, BGSU Schmidthorst College of Business faculty member. 

  • Dana Ullom-Vucelich, chief human resources and ethics officer, Ohio Presbyterian Retirement Services
  • Sheri Caldwell, human resource director, The Grain Group, The Andersons
  • Meg Ressner, principal, Meg Ressner and Associates, LLC
  • Paula Russell, vice president of human resources, Composite Solutions Business, Owens Corning
11:35 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. Networking and Book Sale

Network in themed areas where participants can select the topic they would like to discuss. Note: authors will be available to autograph book purchases.

12:15  – 12:45 p.m. Lunch
1  – 2 p.m. Keynote Presentation

Bonnie Marcus, certified executive coach, speaker, writer, self-promotion expert and author of "The Politics of Promotion:  How High Achieving Women Get Ahead and Stay Ahead" 

2:10 – 2:30 p.m. Bonnie Marcus Book Signing

Updated: 04/07/2022 02:15PM