Rewards NW

Kevin Ames has provided inspiring motivational keynotes and training for more than twenty years from Washington, D.C. to Sydney, Beijing to Boise. In addition to being a successful entrepreneur in his own right, Kevin has traveled the globe working with companies such as American Express, Autoliv, Coca Cola, Iomega, Kimberly Clark, NuSkin, Nature's Own Sweden, Thiokol, Huntsman Cancer Institute, and Sundance. A true Appreciateologist, Kevin is an expert in the areas of recognition & reward, teambuilding, personal development, and leadership. His mission is to "instill in every student a passion for personal and professional excellence." An active marathoner and triathlete, Kevin and his wife Annette live in the beautiful Rocky Mountains of Utah. They are the proud parents of four children and eleven grandchildren.

Frank Glassner is the chief executive officer of Veritas Executive Compensation Consultants (Veritas). Additionally, he leads the Firm's executive compensation consulting practice. His consulting experience includes a wide range of assignments with specialization in: executive compensation; studies linking organizational strategy and compensation programs to business strategies; board of directors compensation and governance; bankruptcy and reorganization compensation and incentive plans; litigation support and expert witness services, tax-deferred compensation; wage and salary administration; job analysis and evaluation; surveys on compensation and organizational practices within specialized industries; sales and marketing compensation; incentive compensation and performance management; and performance appraisal and development. Frank is a nationally recognized executive compensation expert with over thirty-six years of experience in the field of compensation and strategy consulting. Read more..

Tracy Bean is a Partner at Mercer based in Portland, Oregon. She is the Northwest office business leader for the talent practice which helps clients drive performance through their talent. In addition to this leadership role, she specializes in executive rewards programs to help clients secure key talent, enhance business performance and withstand external scrutiny. She is the compensation consultant for many NW companies, both public and private. Prior to Mercer, she worked in the same capacity in public accounting. She is a Certified Public Accountant and a graduate of Portland State University.

Brian Berchtold is the vice president, sales and marketing for hubbub health, an online and mobile wellness solution for employers. Using gamification, social circles and behavior change science, hubbub motivates employees to adopt healthier lifestyles, one rewarding challenge at a time. Brian's passion for health and wellness goes beyond 9 to 5's also board chair for the Pacific Northwest branch of Playworks, a national nonprofit dedicated to creating a positive, empowering experience for every kid on the school playground. Brian credits hubbub with turning his lifestyle around. When he joined the company, Brian was pre-diabetic and struggling with his weight. Today, Brian enjoys healthy cooking and recently completed his third marathon in just 12 months.

Jay Bulson designs, develops and implements Human Resources Programs to meet organizations' primary business objectives. He has done both consulting work with Watson Wyatt Worldwide now (Towers Watson) and has provided independent consulting services to a diverse group of organizations such as the Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle, WhitePages.com and Pacific Northwest Bank, Western Wireless (Alltel), and the Kenmore Fire Department. In addition to his consulting work, Jay most recently has spent over three years with the ECONET Family of Companies. Prior to that he directed the HR work for Brundage-Bone Concrete Pumping, the nation's largest concrete pumping firm, LION, Inc., Aventail Corporation, Advanced Radio Telecom, and Data I/O. Jay has an MBA and a B.A. in Latin from Brigham Young University. He is a Certified Trainer in DDI's "Interaction Management", Blessing/White's "Managing Personal Growth", and other programs. Jay has been actively involved in the Pacific Northwest Compensation Forum, a World@Work chapter, as a board member for four years and has served on salary survey steering committees in the software, telecommunications environmental services, and network marketing or direct selling industries.

David Cichelli, a Senior Vice President with the Alexander Group, a sales effectiveness consulting firm, contributes his knowledge and experience to a wide array of sales organizations. His clients include leading companies in technology, telecommunications, wholesale/distribution, financial services and healthcare. David helps clients redefine and deploy sales coverage to ensure optimal sales performance. By applying the Alexander Group's Sales Management System™, he helps companies achieve their sales objectives through a variety of techniques, including improved channel design, sales ROI, sales metrics, sales forecasting, quota allocation, sales force automation solutions and sales compensation. Widely recognized by national professional associations and trade publications for his work in linking sales compensation to management's objectives, David is a frequent speaker on sales compensation topics. Read more..

Jacqui Demrose is the Sr Global Compensation Analyst at Esterline Corporation — in Bellevue, WA (a global manufacturer of custom-engineered solutions primarily for aerospace & defense markets). In her history the companies range from financial and engineering service organizations, and more recently a regional energy services organization. The companies range in size from 100 locally to her current one of over 12 thousand globally. She has many years of human resources experience, more specifically over 15 years in the compensation area (base pay and incentive programs, job analysis, pay structures and including HRIS implementations). She holds the designation of Sr Professional in Human Resources, as well as Certified Compensation Professional and Global Remuneration Professional. Jacqui is also the Secretary on the Board of the NW Compensation & Rewards Forum.

Ann has over 20 years of experience in human resources management in entrepreneurial technology and financial services companies with a special focus on and passion in compensation, benefits, HRIS and accounting. She has proven success in designing and delivering customized business solutions by aligning HR rewards strategies to business objectives. She has successfully led global payroll and HR systems implementations, design and development of incentive compensation plans, contract renewal for health and welfare benefits as well as company acquisitions and integration activities. She has worked to design and scale domestic and global companies in rapidly changing environments. She has excellent business acumen and is a focused and effective communicator. Clients consider her a trusted and insightful business partner, coach, and mentor. Prior to founding Appian Resources, Ann held senior HR positions within various financial services, healthcare and technology companies. Read more..

Amy has been in the insurance business for over 20 years. She started with ClearPoint in August of 2000. Prior to joining the firm, she was with UNUM Life Insurance Company of America. Amy is extremely well respected in the brokerage community. Her clients range in size from 10 to over 3,000 employees. She is an outstanding negotiator and very well versed in the areas of international benefits and mergers/acquisitions. Her successes have been numerous in her twelve years at ClearPoint, now Alliant. In 2011, Amy was named a Five Star Broker in the State of Washington. She has a passion for her job that shows through as she remains heavily involved with her clients day in and out. In her off time, Amy enjoys spending time with her family and toting kids around to various sporting events. Amy earned her Bachelor of Science degree from Oregon State University in 1987.

Pierce Graham-Jones is VP of Business Development at Jiff, in charge of sales, partnerships, and marketing. Jiff custom designs beautiful, easy-to-use digital health products for large employers, connecting their benefit design with the latest consumer health apps, devices, and services. Before Jiff, he spent five years helping lead digital health efforts at the US Department of Health and Human Services, where he was recognized by Forbes as one of "30 under 30 health care leaders changing the world." Earlier, he spent five years as a management consultant for Monitor Group.

As Manager of Employer Services, Jerry covers the state of Oregon as Serenity Lane's liaison for business and industry helping to identify substance abuse in the workplace. He conducts educational seminars and supervisory training, and oversees the Patient Monitoring Program at Serenity Lane. Jerry is a consultant to the Oregon Medical Association, The Oregon Board of Dentistry, The Oregon Board of Nursing and the Oregon State Board of Pharmacy. He advises on last chance agreements between employers and workers, as well as consults on all aspects of an employee's reintegration into the workforce. He provides case management and support to both employers and employees while utilizing his many years experience as a counselor and negotiator. Jerry frequently serves as an expert witness in legal proceedings involving alcohol and drug abuse issues. Since 1996, Jerry Gjesvold has authored a monthly newspaper column where he presents information about alcohol and substance abuse issues and is a regular guest on five radio stations around Oregon. Jerry holds a bachelor of science degree from the University of Oregon, and completed course work there in graduate studies.

Mike has more than 30 years' experience in employee health and group benefits consulting, most recently with Mercer, where he held practice and regional leadership positions. He has served as manager and senior advisor to major employers in the Northwest, such as King County, Swedish Medical Center and the state of Oregon Public Employees' Benefit Board. Specific accomplishments include: Discussing and creating strategies for health care reform compliance, Meeting with senior executives to help explain policy and environmental changes, Negotiating and delivering plan renewals, Representing major employers in an effort to increase price transparency to assist in employee engagement and delivery system improvement, Creating financial incentives for wellness programs (outcome is typically 80%+ participation), Establishing stabilization reserve criteria that guide plan design decisions for a board made up of management and labor (outcome is that reserve levels have increased to higher levels and cost trends have plummeted), Assisting labor negotiations that place a cap on future employer costs (outcome created change in union perspective on plan design) and Assisting employers in optimizing current benefit plan strategies and/or recommending revised strategies.

Matt Johnson is co-founder and President of Johnson HR Consulting, Inc. He has over twenty years of experience in human resources and information technology consulting. He has comprehensive knowledge of compensation plan design and analysis, survey design, information technology, and customized human resources services. He is also founded and is President of NEXTCOMP.NET which provides software and services to simplify the process of market pricing. Matt joined the Northwest Compensation and Rewards Board in 2011 and is the current Board President.

Ann McClellan is the Compensation Manager for the Port of Seattle. Ann has over 15 years of compensation experience primarily in the public sector. She is responsible for providing leadership and direction to the Port's Compensation Team in administering compensation plans and programs including pay for performance, job evaluation, market pricing, salary structure maintenance, and union pay plans. Ann was actively involved in the design and implementation of the Port's Total Rewards Philosophy and Compensation Strategy.

Pam O'Conner Fay is the Vice President of Total Rewards for BECU, the 4th largest Credit Union in the nation, where she applies strategies to drive efficiency and effectiveness across the full spectrum of Total Rewards programs including market base pay infrastructure to innovative variable and executive compensation programs that deliver long term value in a not-for-profit environment. Optimizing benefits programs that improve the cost trend and the health and wellbeing of employees are her passion. Prior to BECU, Pam spent over 25 years in developing Total Rewards programs at Tektronix and Electro Scientific Industries.

Gillian Oechslin is the President of Prompt, Incorporated, a provider of technology solutions that meet the unique and complex incentive plan needs of their clients. Growing up in Europe and Asia fueled Oechslin's fascination with cultural diversity, providing valuable insight when working with global clients. After a 12 year career in HR/Comp she co-founded Prompt> Inc. - Creative Computing Resources in 1987, providing HRIS/Compensation software solutions. She's consulted with 100+ clients from small privately held firms to large public, global corporations. Prior Speaking Engagements - WorldatWork Conferences in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013, SHRM Regional/Local Chapters and HRIS SHRM classes - St. Joseph College, CT. Past and present board memberships - HRACC/SHRM, ICCA/CT, Chambers of Commerce. Oechslin holds a B.Sc. in Business Management from University of Maryland.

Kathy Prosser, a Senior Partner at Mercer is the US Health & Benefits Client Solutions Leader based in Portland, Oregon. As the Client Solutions Leader she is responsible for Mercer's solutions ranging from day-to-day service delivery, specialty services as well as innovative approaches for clients across all segments. In addition to her leadership role, Kathy consults with key clients bringing her 20+ years of experience in the areas of strategy development, cost containment levers to pursue, program design and total health management strategies. She speaks frequently at industry events and has been active in industry councils. Before joining the organization in 1995, Kathy spent 15 years in business development, with eight years at a regional managed care organization. Kathy holds a BS in business from Portland State University.

Mickey Silberman is the Managing Shareholder of the Denver office of Jackson Lewis P.C., and Chair of the firm's Affirmative Action & EEO Practice Group. He represents management in all areas of employment law and specializes in EEO compliance and systemic discrimination. He is recognized as a national expert on claims of pay discrimination. During the past few years, Mickey has directed the defense of hundreds of EEOC and OFCCP systemic pay discrimination investigations throughout the country. He also spends much of his time conducting preventive self-audits of clients' pay systems as well as other employment processes, such as pre-employment tests and background checks to uncover potential discrimination. Mickey is Legal Counsel to and serves on the Executive Committee of the National Industry Liaison Group (NILG), the umbrella group for regional and local ILGs throughout the country. ILGs are comprised of federal contractors that regularly meet with local, regional, and national representatives of the OFCCP and EEOC to engage in information exchange. Through his work with the NILG, Mr. Silberman frequently meets with top OFCCP and EEOC officials to discuss the agencies' regulatory initiatives and enforcement trends and present the federal contractor community's feedback on these developments.

Laura Srebotnik is the Director of Human Resources for Blyth, a holding company of several retail-oriented firms (PartyLite, ViSalus, Silver Star Brands). Blyth offers a variety of incentive plans for their employees across the globe. Their newest incentive program for European participants has provided a number of challenges to meet the strict EU requirements while motivating good performance. A Human Resource Professional with over 18 years of experience in a corporate environment, in various aspects of Human Resources Management including; Employee Relations, HRIS, Compensation, Benefits and Payroll.

John Sutliffe's a seasoned sales professional with more than 15 years of SaaS sales and leadership experience. John joined Virgin Pulse in 2012 as VP, Sales and brings a proven ability to generate global revenue and close complex sales engagements with top executives at multi-national companies. In his role, John oversees all aspects of Pulse's direct sales and lead generation efforts and ensures the company offers compelling solutions that meet prospective customers' needs. John joined Virgin Pulse from Kenexa, a global provider of business solutions for human resources. There, Sutliffe served as Global Vice President of Sales and oversaw all aspects of global sales for the Compensation business unit. Before Kenexa, John was with Salary.com (acquired by Kenexa) and was instrumental in directing the growth and profitability of its award-winning products. John has a BS from the University of New Hampshire-Durham Whittemore School of Business and Economics. He's also CCP and GRP certified through WorldatWork.

Mark has over 30 years experience as a compensation practitioner, and has held compensation, benefits and HR systems leadership roles for a number of organizations including Honeywell, Digital Equipment Corporation, Wang Laboratories, Kronos, Comcast, Progress Software and Lightbridge. Mark has extensive experience in all aspects of compensation, including the design, development, implementation and ongoing administration of compensation systems and programs including base pay, variable compensation, sales and executive compensation. Additionally, he has experience in international benefits, mergers and acquisitions and HR systems selection and implementation. In his role here at IBM, Mark drives research on trends in compensation practice and spends most of his time meeting with our customers and other compensation professionals to understand the challenges that HR professionals face in today's market. Read more..

Steve Treder is the Vice President for Strategic Development for Western Management Group, a management consulting firm that has specialized in compensation analysis since 1972. Prior to joining WMG, Mr. Treder was the Worldwide Sales Compensation Manger for Hewlett-Packard, and held Senior Compensation and Human Resources positions in the high end technology industry for nearly 25 years. Among his areas of particular expertise are Incentive Compensation Plan design, and Labor market analysis. Mr. Treder holds a Masters from Stanford University, and a bachelor's from Santa Clara University, both in the field of Sociology.

Tom is a professor and director of International Business Programs at Marylhurst. He has more than 20 years of corporate experience at Aeon USA, Inc., a New York-based subsidiary of a $60 billion-a-year international retail conglomerate based in Japan, where he last served as executive vice president and general manager for the company. He currently serves as the Commissioner for the Port of Portland and Adviser to Board of Directors of Neogrid, LLC, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Tsuruta's past and current corporate board membership includes Talbots Inc., WWRE LLC, Agentrics LLC, AEON USA Inc. and OnPoint Credit Union. Tsuruta received his J.D. from Northwestern School of Law of Lewis and Clark College and his BA in English from Daito Bunka University, Tokyo.

Steven's consulting experience includes a wide range of assignments with specialization in executive compensation, board of directors compensation, wage and salary administration, job analysis and evaluation, sales compensation, short- and long-term incentive compensation and performance management, litigation support, performance appraisal and development, change-incontrol and severance plan analysis and design, proxy advisory services, regulatory advisory services (e.g., SEC, FASB, etc.), and analysis of shareholder advisory Company assessment criteria (e.g., burn rate, shareholder value transfer, etc.). Steve is in his 10th year of executive compensation consulting. Previously, he worked as a Senior Consultant with Meridian Compensation Partners, LLC, and as an Associate with Compensation Design Group, Inc. Steve has worked with various companies including those in banking and diversified financial services, private equity and venture capital, retail, manufacturing, energy production, utility, consumer products, high technology, and food distribution industries, as well as with not-for-profit organizations.