Abby Straus, Founder & Principal, Maverick & Boutique (she/her)

Be the change…

My mission is to support people in being the architects of their desired futures. I help leaders and teams understand how they think, act, and interact, what needs to change for success, and how to do it.

I work with a cadre of practical, reliable tools that capitalize on people’s strengths and help them leverage opportunity. A selection of my certifications appears to the left.

Mindfulness is fundamental to my life and work. Why? Because it is only when we are calm and fully present that we can effectively address the complex issues facing us as individuals, teams, and organizations.

Clients have included libraries and library systems, non-profits, educational and health care institutions, communities and their economic development organizations, and organizations in the private and public sectors, including defense.

I hold a BA in cultural anthropology from Hampshire College and a Master of Divinity from Gauden University.  I’m the proud mother of a thirty-one-year-old daughter, and an avid yoga practitioner and musician. I live in the Pioneer Valley in Massachusetts.

STRATEGIC PARTNERS

M&B is a network of talented individuals and teams ready to deliver solutions tailored to your needs. Here are some of our key partners.

Leadership, Strategy & Program Management

Gib Kerr, Principal, KerrWerx, LLC (he/him)    

As a retired U.S. Navy Captain, who has also been a corporate executive, a senior executive in government, an executive coach and a professor (teaching leadership and Program Management), Gibson (Gib) Kerr has over 40 years’ experience working in a variety of organizations and developing teams as small as 5 individuals to as many as 300. A highly skilled facilitator and master trainer, he is able to draw on his extensive range of experience to help organizations improve outcomes.

Though trained as an engineer where typically coming up with technically excellent solutions was enough, Gib is often quoted as saying “soft skills enable hard results.” To this end he has devoted his varied career to learning, applying, adapting and integrating a cornucopia of team skills and technical tools to improve the interactions of those with whom he works. He loves helping teams succeed, and really enjoys making the complicated simple- so people and teams have the knowledge and tools they need to address the challenges they face.

He takes very seriously his personal mission to help people understand themselves, interact better as individuals and in teams, and to learn and apply new tools and techniques in order to generate improved outcomes for themselves and their organizations. He once stated in an interview, “I wish I had these tools and been this self-aware back in the late 1970’s when I first started working in teams…I would have made waaayyyy fewer mistakes.”

  • Emergenetics® Master Associate
  • de Bono Master Trainer
  • FISH!® Philosophy Master Trainer
  • LPI360® (Leadership Challenge) Coach
  • Franklin-Covey 7 Habits® and Speed of Trust® Facilitator
  • Lean Six Sigma Black Belt
  • Everything DiSC® Trainer
  • Overcoming the 5 Dysfunctions of Teams (also known as Wiley’s Five Behaviors)
  • Team Offsite Facilitator

Roberta Wilmore (she/her)

Roberta is a coach and consultant who helps individuals and organizations access their untapped potential. She has decades of experience in executive and organizational development, nonprofits, commercial and residential real estate, creative entrepreneurship, and the equity and inclusion work that is so fundamental to success across the globe.

Roberta has served as a trusted advisor, executive coach, and board member for dozens of nonprofit organizations and businesses, ranging from creative arts organizations, to academic institutions, and philanthropic and community organizations.

She has a long term interest in the horse world and in 2001 she founded the Children’s Equitation Center, connecting children of color to the world of equestrian sports. In 2022, Roberta co-founded the Ethos Awards at the Washington International Horse Show, which recognizes the contributions of African Americans to equine sports.

Roberta’s photo by Veronique Bryant

Richard Hansen, Principal, Hansen & Associates, LLC (he/him)

Richard coaches government and corporate leaders through all levels of management, across a wide variety of products and services lifecycles. These multiple domains include high-tech program management, financial management, information technology/cyber, healthcare, non-profit, production, and logistics. Using a refined, proven coaching model and process, Richard partners with key leaders to reflect on what’s possible (vs. predictable/status quo) to design and implement an extraordinary future for their teams, organization, and enterprise.

As a solid foundation for leadership coaching in large and complex organizations, Richard served twenty-six years as a leader with the US Army from 1982-2008. He held various command and staff positions in armored and airborne artillery and infantry units. His research, development, production, and sustainment experience includes various assignments as a product, project, or program manager in electric guns, armored vehicles, precision guided munitions, and critical clothing and equipment for aviation crewmen, dismounted Soldiers, and vehicle crewmen.

Additionally, he established and led an ICF award-winning enterprise coaching program growing a cadre of 10 coaches and 20 clients to well over 100 experienced acquisition practitioners, who have coached over 600 senior government leaders to create and sustain a coaching culture that improves their business performance, organizational alignment, and leadership capacities.

  • International Coach Federation Professional Certified Coach, 2019, 2022
  • Center for Creative Leadership, Benchmarks® 360 Assessment Suite, 2015
  • International Coach Federation Global Prism Honorable Mention, 2013
  • International Coach Federation DC Metro Chapter Prism Award, 2013
  • Living In Presence Coaching Course® (Doug Silsbee, ACTP), 2013
  • Strength Deployment Inventory® Facilitator (Personal Strengths, Inc.), 2012
  • Presence-Based Coaching®, 2011 (Doug Silsbee)
  • Leading at the Speed of Trust™ Facilitator (Franklin-Covey), 2010
  • Masterful Coaching®, 2010 (Robert Hargrove, Defense Acquisition University)
  • Lockheed-Martin Program Management Course, 2009
  • Relationship and Body-Mind Vibrance Coach, (Hendricks Institute), 2008
  • Six Sigma Green Belt (Humphries and Associates), 2000
  • Level III Program Management (Department of Defense), 1998

John Driessnack, Principal, Olde Stone Consulting (he/him)   

John’s experience spans 30 years supporting federal civilian, defense, and intelligence agencies, including 20 years on active duty in the United States Air Force. He specializes in solving wicked problems by combining his industrial engineering and institutional economics education with evolving practices in systems leadership and management within a portfolio/program/project framework.

Since retiring from the Air Force in 2004, John has worked with both federal agencies and contractors to streamline processes and solve programmatic issues. He has also collaborated with American University to set up the first Federal Acquisition Institute (FAI) approved cohort Senior Program Management Certificate Program for federal employees.

As a member of the National Defense Industrial Association, he enjoys working with industry and government colleagues to advance the state of the art in systems engineering and program management.

John also works as a professor focused on senior level complex PEO/Program simulations,  a video series called the DAG Dialogs, and updating the Integrated Program and Process Development (IPPD) Handbook. He teaches at American University and the University of Maryland.

Happily married for over 35 years, he and his wife live and work on their 40-acre farm in Loudoun County Virginia.  They enjoy time with their 7 children and their new families as well as developing their fruit orchard and renovating John’s two Willys jeeps.

Libraries

Greg Pronevitz, Principal, Greg Pronevitz Consulting (he/him)

Greg has been working in and with libraries and library consortia for more than 40 years.  Prior to launching his consultancy in 2018, he served as founding executive director of the Massachusetts Library System (MLS), a state-funded consortium.  Under his leadership, MLS emerged from the economically forced 2010 merger of regional library systems to fulfill its current vital role providing essential services to all Massachusetts libraries.

He also served as founding director of the Northeast Massachusetts Regional Library System where strategic planning for member libraries was an essential service.  Greg’s team developed an efficient system for facilitating meetings and developing plans to meet state requirements which later evolved into the suggested planning methodology at MLS.  He played a key role in strategic planning at numerous libraries, e.g., multiple plans at the public libraries in Ipswich, Westford, and Wilmington, MA.

Greg’s enthusiasm for enhancing library services led him to become deeply involved in library advocacy, logistics, digital content, as well as ALA and local library associations.

He earned an MLS and a BA (Russian Language and Literature) from SUNY Albany and an AA from Nassau Community College.

Economic & Community Development

Michael S. Shuman (he/him)

Michael Shuman is an economist, attorney, and globally recognized expert on community economics. He is one of the architects of the crowdfunding reforms that became the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (JOBS Act), signed into law in April 2012. He is the author of nine books, including Local Dollars: Local Sense, The Small-Mart Revolution, and Going Local. In 2015, Shuman’s newest book, The Local Economy Solution, was published by Chelsea Green.  It presents the stories of 28 “pollinator” enterprises that are nurturing local businesses in self-financing ways. Additionally, Shuman is a fellow at Cutting Edge Capital and the Post-Carbon Institute and is a founding board member of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE).  Shuman has also advised countless communities on strategies to increase local economic multipliers, and just completed (with Gwen Hallsmith) a handbook on local investment opportunities in Vermont.

Camoin 310 is a full-service economic development consulting firm headquartered in Saratoga Springs, NY with regional offices in Richmond, VA; Scarborough, ME; Cambridge, MA; and Brattleboro, VT. Our staff have decades of experience, some of which includes leadership of the top performing economic development organizations in the country. We bring this depth of experience to every project, and push the envelope to develop measurable strategies that capitalize on entrepreneurial initiatives and emerging industries. The result? A region more competitive for private investment, and thus prosperity.