Team Members

Steve Gandara and the Excellent Cultures Team have spent FOUR DECADES PRODUCING THE WORLD’S BEST CULTURES FOR THE WORLD’S BEST COMPANIES DELIVERING TRIPLE and QUADRUPLE digit ROI’s. A Hispanic American, Steve grew up in a West Texas family of overachievers, graduated from the University of Oklahoma, served as a US Army Reserve Officer, and completed post graduate work in management and leadership at Texas Christian and General Motors Universities. He has served a wide range of leaders and firms from startups to Fortune 500s as both executive coach and leadership consultant. His clients include corporate execs, entrepreneurs, business owners, family office leaders, labor-union leadership, and sales execs as well as clergy and nonprofit leaders. Clients praise his expertise in helping them devise and implement strategies that build great leaders and corporate cultures of unity that celebrate diversity and surpass competitors by delivering amazing returns while maximizing professional and personal growth of leaders and employees alike.

Coach Mike Connaway Excellent Cultures' Senior Partner was the original Executive Coach. He began his career in executive coaching in 1993 in partnership with legendary multiple National Championship winning college football coach Fred Akers. Since then Mike’s coached hundreds of leaders ranging from professional athletes to CEO’s of major corporations.

Dale Hintz - Certified Management Consultant (CMC), helps clients identify goals and map clear paths to their “next level.” The mark CMC® is awarded by the Institute of Management Consultants to independent consultants meeting global ISO/IEC requirements and upholding strict ethical standards. 2% in the profession achieve CMC® certification.

Frances Strickland is a former Human Resources executive in the FMCG space. Her career spans more than 30 years as a leader in manufacturing and human resources in various industries, and across cultures from all four corners of the globe. She established V Chastain Global Enterprises LLC in 2013 and launched the Verolead™ consultancy in 2020 amid the pandemic when a new reality revealed the challenges of leaders to inspire and thrive in crises and beyond. Frances brings strengths in executive talent development and succession planning, change leadership, and performance culture from a human perspective, all with the view to enhance the quality of the work experience while enabling individuals to be the best version of themselves and realize their best contribution and potential wherever they may find themselves.

Pete Wilkinson - Pete is a coach, mentor and high-performance talent architect. For over four decades, he’s mentored and trained talented athletes, their coaches, teams and their families in the achievement of sustainable peak performance, success and life balance.

Mike Chirveno helps business leaders build the business they've always dreamed of. Mike has worked with startups, family businesses, publicly traded companies, government agencies, and not for profits. His industry experience has spanned hospitality, fresh produce, food production, consumer packaged goods, mortgages, publishing, automotive, construction, medical, professional services, engineering, and more.

Cheri Benson's business coaching credentials: Certified Professional Coach with three decades of experience in mentoring, coaching, team building and personal development. She has a long history of helping leaders discover and break through limiting beliefs and structures.

David Kobelin is a Certified Professional Coach, international speaker, and trainer. He has spent over 35 years successfully encouraging, equipping, and empowering leaders and their teams. Providing clarity and clear step by step goals, David enables his clients to meet and exceed their desired performance results.

Bryan Flanagan began his career as a delivery boy for the IBM Corporation in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He then invested the next 14 years with IBM as a salesman, a “people” manager, and a sales instructor at IBM’s national training center. In 1984, Bryan joined the Zig Ziglar Corporation. He served as the Director of Corporate Training for Zig for over 25 years working with a variety of companies, industries, and clients.

Pete Leach is a Certified Professional Coach with the Coach Masters Academy. He’s spent over 25 years successfully developing, encouraging, and empowering socially excluded people from diverse cultural backgrounds to develop achievable goals both in a team dynamic and as strong individuals. His constant aim is to provide clear, achievable goals that enable his clients to meet and exceed their desired personal and professional goals. In his former roles as CEO and General Manager, he’s been involved in assisting over 150 socially excluded and marginalized people globally.

Management Consultant, Corporate Trainer, Published Author, Program Manager and Business School Adjunct Faculty. Jayant has donned several professional hats over the years. Born and bred in Bangalore, Jayant has lived in the greater Seattle area since 1999. He holds an MBA from The Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore. Apart from his management consulting projects, Jayant presents training and workshops in project management, effective communication, and team building.

Mitchell Levy - Global Credibility Expert Mitchell Levy is a 2x TEDx speaker and international bestselling author of over 60 books. After interviewing 500 thought leaders on credibility, he created the Credibility Nation community, published a 7-country international bestselling book, delivered a TEDx, created courses, and is working on getting the definition of credibility rewritten in the dictionary.

Dr. Santarvis Brown has spent 15+ years serving as a leader, innovator, and changemaker in education showcasing in-depth insight as an educator, and higher education administrator. His wealth of experience, unrivaled passion, and powerful work ethic has equipped him with the skills and tools to effectively lead faculty and staff while also being an agent of progressive change and innovation.

Jeff Arthur is the founder and creator of The Values Conversation, an assessment and conversation that facilitates values-based growth and development that helps people gain personal congruency as they learn more about what they value and who they are from those values on a personal, business and relationship level. Jeff has worked with executives, owners, and leaders from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies and served in support from personnel hiring, team development, leadership training and strategic planning.

Mae Francis is known best for inspiring and transferring positivity to whomever she comes in contact with! Mae is acknowledged for her expertise in training and development that builds interactive programs, speeches, and coaching that educate and inspire professionals; as well as programs that support the emotional and social development of youth as well as business leaders. Her insights and experience specifically in the areas of inspiring cultures of unity that celebrate diversity set her apart from others in the field of diversity, equity and inclusion. Her contributions to the Excellent Cultures Diversity Culture MRI have set benchmarks for all who seek cultures of unity that truly celebrate diversity rather than tolerate it.

Dr. Tony Pizelo has been an executive in the financial industry for over 25 years. He is currently Associate Professor in the College of Business at Northwest University. Dr. Pizelo holds a Bachelors of Arts (BA) degree in Economics with honors from Gonzaga University, a Masters of Arts (MA) degree in Economics from Washington State University, and a MA and PhD in Industrial Organizational Psychology from Seattle Pacific University. His dissertation in Industrial Organizational Psychology involved research in sales, leadership, sales performance development and theory of mind.

Chaitra Vedullapalli has over 17 years of experience in the software industry. She brings a host of capabilities including marketing, industry, and partner expertise. She has a proven track record of enabling global transformations, architecting innovative business models, launching 360 degree marketing, leading communities and leading teams with excellence.

Heather Sword provides administrative support and project management for Excellent Cultures. She is one of our clients’ first points of contact and manages all the logistics of setting up and administering Excellent Cultures’ projects including all online diagnostic questionnaires and surveys.

Denise Upah Mills is a self-described Serial Entrepreneur. She is cofounder and Chief Mindset Officer of LeaderFuelNow, LLC and is also a principal of Pacific Accord, Inc. 25 years of successful business ownership experience that spans a variety of industries including: real-estate; insurance; financial services; agriculture; healthcare and technology provide her with a wealth of real world business knowledge.

Doreen Lecheler - For more than 25 years, Doreen Lecheler has lived her passion and purpose - growing people, developing leaders and transforming cultures. Whether working with leaders of a nation, a community, an organization or a team, Doreen's dynamic teaching and insightful coaching has helped turn untapped potential into meaningful and measurable performance.

John Kaminski - John is passionate about guiding companies to the next level while emphasizing the importance of strong leadership and organizational culture. He is a coach and mentor working with business owners and C level executives across the nation.

Charles Herrick Throughout more than 25 years in management and exec positions, Charles has displayed a unique ability to transform any operation he has run. From a successful career at IBM through to starting and running his own IT integration firm, he has consistently built powerful teams of dedicated employees and managers and then taken them to new heights of business success and employee morale.

Kent Kingman has been a consultant of business transformation, performance enhancement and culture transition since 1989. He serves on the Board of Directors for two family held companies and runs a third as interim CEO. Kent is very unique among today's management support professionals. He has personally implemented the concepts of culture transition in various supervision and management roles within a multibillion dollar aerospace company as well as several privately held companies. His consulting experience is based on real-time experiences and not just theory.

Randall Benson – is a Lean Master and the founding principal of Benson Consulting, an Excellent Cultures Alliance Partner. Randall has spent over 20 years as a Lean business consultant helping businesses deploy highly effective Lean Process Initiatives resulting in multiple breakthroughs in efficiencies and phenomenal cost savings. For over 20 years, Randall has served his clients in applying Lean Principles (rooted in the Toyota Production System). Today he works primarily with manufacturing, service and healthcare organizations who wish to apply Lean Principles to improve the performance of their organizations.

Charles R. Oglesby - Recently retired from his position as Executive Chairman of the Board of Asbury Automotive Group Inc. Asbury is a Fortune 500 Retail Automotive Consolidator. At the time of his retirement, Asbury was the 6th largest in the US owning and operating 81 Automobile Dealerships posting annual sales of $3.7 Billion.

Dennis E. Clements was an officer of Toyota Motor Sales, USA. He served as Group Vice President and General Manager of the highly acclaimed Lexus USA Division from 2000 to 2005, where he led the process of building the automotive culture that set the bar for the industry. He was previously President of Toyota's Central Atlantic division from June 1991 to June 2000, and held a number of other senior management positions at Toyota.

Dr. McKenna is Executive Director of the Center for Leadership Research and Development and Chair of Industrial/Organizational Psychology at Seattle Pacific University. He is also the founder of Real Time Development Strategies and creator of BadBobby.com, an online leadership development portal designed to help leaders and their teams get intentional about their learning and growth, while actually making that process engaging and fun.