2008 HCSS User's Group Meeting

Meet Our Executive Series Instructors
	Gene Duckro, President Industrial Relations International, Inc. Gene Duckro is president of Industrial Relations International, Inc., an International Management Consulting Firm specializing in all aspects of human resources consulting. Gene has been heavily involved in the formulation, development and presentation of training programs for over thirty years. He has trained over 150,000 managers and supervisors in areas such as: leadership, communications, motivation, performance management, delegation, and conflict resolution. Also, he facilitates numerous team building and organizational development activities across a wide range of organizations. His unique perspective combines the best of human resources management with a strong operations orientation and understanding of what it takes to get extraordinary performance from people. Gene's is returning to teach his class Extraordinary Leadership Workshop.

	Mike Murray, President Creative Interchange Consultants Since 1973 Mike Murray has helped managers and corporate executives work more productively and effectively. As an owner of his own consulting business and a featured speaker for a major seminar company, Mike has trained more than 240,000 seminar participants in areas such as change management, conflict resolution, strategic planning, customer service, creative problem solving and team building. Murray combines his unique insight and his understanding of people and how they interact to solve tough problems to enable leaders to more effectively manage their organizations. He uses a wide variety of teaching and learning processes to enable workshop participants to equip themselves with skills and strategies for successfully accomplishing their mission. Murray has delivered more than 250 Vistage (TEC) programs and has worked in all 50 states, as well as around the world. Mike is returning to teach his class Change Management and a new class Leadership: Courage, Humility and Trust.

	Brad Hams, President Ownership Thinking, LLC Brad, with the help of his extraordinary team, developed the Ownership Thinking model in the early ‘90s, during which time he was the president of Mrs. Fields Cookies in Mexico. This model provides employees and organizations with the tools and training they need to realize their potential, and to create wealth where wealth might never have been created. Brad holds a master’s degree in Organization Development and Human Resources, and has taught business at the graduate level. He is a board member of the National Center for Employee Ownership, the number one resource for information and research related to broad based equity programs. In addition to his consulting work, Brad is one of the most sought after speakers for Vistage, the world’s largest membership organization of CEOs. Both of Brad's classes, Engage Your Employees to Think Like Owners and How to Design Effective Incentive Plans for Your Employees, are new this year.

	Sophie Rydin, Ph.D., OTR, Vice President HCSS Before joining HCSS in 1991, Sophie worked for 13 years in hospitals and clinics treating patients with various physical disabilities as a staff therapist and manager. The last six years she specialized in treating work-related injuries and educating injured workers. She became an advocate on wellness and injury prevention and established a wellness program at HCSS in 1995.She continually added more components until it became today’s comprehensive wellness program. Sophie went back to school to pursue her Ph.D. in Occupational Therapy and graduated in May 2007 from Texas Woman’s University (TWU) in Houston with a research focus on wellness and prevention. She is currently a part-time professor at TWU and guest lecturer for the University of Texas, School of Public Health in Houston, as well as Vice President for HCSS. Sophie is also in the process of getting her certification as a Certified Ergonomic Evaluation Specialist (CEES), which will expand her practice and research to job-site analysis and ergonomic assessment to prevent or reduce work-related injuries. Sophie's class, Corporate Wellness, is new this year.