Theme: Re-Imagining the Organization

Organizations are vehicles for human collaboration, yet many people have the sense that the current way we run organizations has been stretched to its limits. We are increasingly disillusioned by organizational life. That the Dilbert cartoons could become cultural icons says a lot about the extent to which organizations can make work miserable and pointless. So is it possible to create organizations that draw out more of our human potential? What do such organizations look like? How do we bring them to life and how do we identify and turn around those that are struggling. These are the questions at the heart of our TEDx event.

City Council Chambers
701 Broadway Street
Columbia, Missouri, 65201
United States

Adam Weber

Creative Gun for Hire

Adam is the Co-Founder and CEO of The Evoke Group as well as an active musician, web developer, videographer, and producer. Adam is a University of Missouri graduate with a degree in Strategic Communication: Journalism and is passionate about technology innovation.

Doug Hanson

After successful careers in the computer industry with Hewlett Packard and the entertainment industry as a show director for ESPN televised sports, Doug Hanson created his company and committed his life to helping people and organizations thrive and prosper by improving their skills, mindset, energy, and connection. Today Doug is nationally and internationally recognized as a speaker, consultant, and peak performance coach with clients in the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Canada, Mexico, Switzerland, Sweden, India, and Singapore.

Dr. Chuck Coker

People Development

For more than 30 years Dr. Coker has focused his career on people development. He has implemented proprietary Personal Formation, Human Capital, Talent Management and incentive based programs across a broad scope of Fortune Companies, regional organizations, and educational institutions. He was one of the founding authorities of The Balfour Motivational Research Institute (BMRI). The institute spent over three years identifying and codifying the key human factor contributors to motivation and success. This was accomplished in multinational and large organizations as well as hundreds of medium and small companies. Through his research, Chuck has illustrated how the vast majority of the capacities companies look for most in successful employees can be improved at double-digit percentile rates with his methodology.

Janine Stichter, Ph.D.

Social Competence and Behavioral Regulation

Janine Stichter is has her doctorate in applied behavior analysis and specializes in behavior change. She is a professor at the University of Missouri specializing in social competence and behavioral regulation for children and adults. She consults at the individual level for personal goal achievement and with companies large and small to evaluate and optimize organizational health.

Jill Nagel

Developing Champions

Jill Nagel has over 16 years of basketball coaching experience from high school to college. In her 11 years at Rock Bridge High School she has a 253-62 record and five State Championships, including four straight – the first Missouri Class 5 team, boys or girls, to achieve this feat. Twenty of her former players have gone on to play basketball collegiately with an additional six playing other collegiate sports.

Keith Politte

Building Collaborative Projects

Keith brings to TEDxCosmoPark a wide range of experiences in higher education, strategic communications, project development and connective imagining. While at the University of Missouri, he build collaborative projects with several private sector companies, including Apple, Adobe and Newsy.com. A native Columbian, Keith earned his BA from Boston University and his JD from Golden Gate University in San Francisco.

Kerry Goyette

Engineering Teams that Work

Kerry is the Founder & President of Aperio Consulting Group, a corporate consulting firm that provides workplace analytics and training to build high performance cultures. Kerry consults clients across the world on scientific strategies for engineering teams that maximize performance. She is also the founding authority of the Motivational Research Institute focused on identifying the key human factor contributors to success.Kerry is certified to administer a wide variety of cutting edge workplace analytics measuring motivation, engagement, safety/risk management behaviors, attitude, mental ability, emotional intelligence and many others. In addition, she is a certified forensic interviewer with advanced training as an expert witness by the American Prosecutors Research Institute. This specialized training has given her unique insight in diagnosing the true problem. Her consulting has taken her all over the world which has exposed her to a variety of workplace cultures and industries.

Lindsay Young Lopez

Executive Director, The Food Bank of Central and Northeast Missouri

Lindsay is executive director of The Food Bank for Central & Northeast Missouri, a position she has held since November 2014. In her role, Lopez leads all operational functions and serves as the public face of The Food Bank, which has a staff of 57 employees and holds nearly $13 million in assets and inventory. She is the third person to serve as director of the 35-year old organization. Previously, she spent more than 18 years in higher education fundraising and advancement at both the University of Missouri and Columbia College, where she oversaw the Tradition Meets Tomorrow Campaign, which raised a record-setting $11.1 million and led to construction of a state-of-the-art science building. In 2013, Lopez received the Athena Young Professional Award from the Women’s Network Division of the Columbia Chamber of Commerce. In 2012, she was selected to the Greater Missouri Leadership Challenge, and the Columbia Business Times named her to its “20 Under 40” honor roll in 2009.

Loreli Wilson, PHR, SHRM-CP

United Initiator - directing diversity and inclusion initiatives

Loreli is a Columbia native and University of Missouri graduate. She serves as the United Initiator at Veterans United Home Loans, directing the diversity and inclusion initiative, appropriately named the “United Initiative”. She is dedicated to promoting an inclusive workforce conducive to Veterans United’s unique culture, and ultimately strives for each employee to feel comfortable in their own skin. With a background in Human Resources and Recruiting, she has volunteered her skills to such organizations as MO State Council of SHRM as Director of Diversity, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Missouri as a Board Member, and currently serves as an Advisory Board Member and founding member of the Diversity Awareness Partnership - Columbia.

Mallory Van Waarde

Digital Strategist with a bent for adventure.

Mallory is a Digital Strategist with a bent for adventure. While working remotely and traveling abroad, she co-founded Magnifyre, where she helps organizations committed to social good thrive in the digital space. Mallory has never met a stranger, and believes in the power of experience to build empathy.

Orvil Savery, PHR, SHRM-CP

Lover of all things involving talent management

Orvil is a University of Missouri graduate and lover of all things involving talent management. He serves as an HR Generalist and Diversity Recruiter at Veterans United Home Loans. He is dedicated to nurturing, cultivating and recruiting an inclusive and diverse workforce in which every employee can deliver results through their own unique skill set, background, and perspective to enhance the lives of their colleagues, clients, and community. Orvil Is committed to providing opportunities to others and lends much of his time to various organizations including; EPIC (Emerging Professionals in Columbia), Jabberwocky Studios and currently serves as an Advisory Board Member to the Diversity Awareness Partnership – Columbia.

Sarah Hill

Chief Storyteller

Sarah is the chief storyteller and CEO of StoryUP, a VR journalism startup based in Columbia, Mo. A former interactive news anchor and chief storyteller forVeterans United Foundation, Hill creates with human media, pushing the transition of text-based storytelling to a three-dimensional world. She was the first person to use a Google Hangout on TV so she could see and hear her audience live during the broadcast. An alumna of the University of Missouri School of Journalism and former adjunct faculty, Hill's reporting has taken her team around the globe covering stories in Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Guatemala and Zambia. Hill is a national Edward R. Murrow, national Sigma Delta Chi, NAB Service to America and 12 time Mid-America Emmy award-winning storyteller.

Waleed Amer

Precision Online Marketing

Waleed is the founder and owner of Legacy Marketing Communications as well as a lecturer on the topic of Digital Marketing & SEO. His work revolves around bridging the gap between traditional marketing solutions and technology, specializing in managing digital communication channels.