Team Members

Steve Gandara has spent over four decades helping leaders create High Performance Business Cultures. He has served clients including Fortune 500 corporate executives, business owners, entrepreneurs, labor-union leaders, sales executives, and educators as well as nonprofit and clergy leaders, as a professional leadership mentor and business architect.  Clients praise his expertise in helping them devise strategies that build leaders and cultures with a relentless commitment to excellence making up the dynamic and aggressive teams demanded in today's global economy.

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.

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.

Ron Tate has an international reputation for helping, leaders, managers and sales organizations not only improve their performance but maximize it. He’s known for having built some of the most successful management and sales teams, in a number of industries.

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.

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.