Associates For Professional Development is a group of highly skilled and experienced coaches who work both collaboratively and independently. Each member of our coaching team has substantial experience working in a variety of coaching settings. Our success in coaching outstanding leaders is extensive. Industry experience includes: healthcare, finance, sales, business leadership, education, non-profit, manufacturing and apparel.
Beverly A. Bradstock
Beverly A. Bradstock is an experienced Executive Coach and is a Senior Partner in Associates For Professional Development. She earned a certification in Business Coaching from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and she holds an MBA from Wake Forest University.
She has 15 years of business coaching experience and has consulted in a variety of industries including: healthcare, manufacturing, government, energy and finance. Beverly has expertise in coaching all levels, from senior executive through first level manager. She provides expert and innovative program development and facilitation, and has assisted organizations managing through change since 1994.
Beverly is a trained mediator, is certified in Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), The Center for Creative Leadership’s Skillscope and Benchmarks, The Birkman and Hay-McBer’s Emotional Competence Inventory. She is co-author of the “Successful Human Resource Management Principles” seminar that is part of a curriculum that is currently being presented in fifteen languages around the world.
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Thomas P. Desch
Tom is an experienced Executive Coach and a Senior Partner in Associates For Professional Development, a coaching and organizational development practice in Winston-Salem, NC. He has coached more than 300 business leaders over the past 15 years. His coaching participants have included professionals from the staff level through regional and international corporate executives with a focus on healthcare administrators and clinicians.
Certified in the MBTI, Denison Organizational Culture Survey, Denison Leadership Survey, FiroB, and PaperPlanes, Inc., Tom has been instrumental in coaching a wide variety of corporate clients through high levels of change. He has designed and facilitated simulations for leadership development, stress management, team-building and effective communication and uses these simulations to magnify the learning process.
Tom has a BA from the University of Notre Dame and a MS in Counseling from the University of Dayton. In addition to his corporate work, Tom has maintained a family therapy practice in Winston-Salem for over 20 years.
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Sarah E. Putnam
Sarah E. Putnam earned her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro , her M.S. from Oklahoma State University, in Stillwater, OK and her B.A. from the University of Oklahoma in Norman, OK. She is a developmental coach with 15 years experience delivering in-depth coaching, consulting and training for healthcare, industrial firms, school systems and governmental agencies.
Sarah has an extensive background in group facilitation, assessment, feedback and statistical analysis and reporting. She has authored and produced web-based educational programs and has authored white papers detailing process and cultural improvements for healthcare and industry. Sarah has coached nearly 3,000 workers through career transitions, from factory floor workers to senior level leaders.
Prior to joining Associates for Professional Development, Sarah was a senior partner at New Ideas in Training & Development for more than 10 years. She was also an instructor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where she designed, conducted and reported research for the national Board for Professional Teaching Standards that resulted in the nationwide implementation of a certification system for outstanding teachers.
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Pandora Gordon
Pandora serves clients as an executive coach, specializing in 360° feedback coaching, developmental coaching, and career coaching. She believes every coaching session gives clients a unique opportunity to discover something new about themselves, and that this can only happen when they feel their coach is truly present for them. Pandora’s passion is helping clients and her great listening skills combined with her caring nature enable Pandora to establish a genuine rapport with her coaching clients, connecting with them to quickly identify their unique needs and design appropriate solutions.
Before entering the coaching profession, Pandora enjoyed a 20-year career with HanesBrands Inc., where she held a variety of positions of increasing responsibility.
She is certified in seven 360° Feedback Assessments including Tilt Leadership Predictor™, Leadership Versatility Index®, The Leadership Circle Profile™, Benchmarks®, 360 BY DESIGN®, Executive Dimensions®, and SKILLSCOPE®. Individual Assessments that Pandora is certified to administer include MBTI®, Change Style Indicator®, SOCIAL STYLE™, DISC, and Strength Deployment Inventory®.
Pandora lives by this mantra: “Life is way too short and precious to not spend your time doing something that fulfills you.” Once she discovered her love of coaching, Pandora completed the UNC-Charlotte Business Coaching Certification program. She also holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from High Point University.
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Mary Ann Furniss
Mary Ann Furniss is a gifted Personal and Business Coach, drawing on over 25 years of leadership in a Fortune 500 company and in federal and state government organizations. She has served in a variety of executive and management roles in several functional business areas that include information systems, human resources, franchising, and planning.
Mary Ann’s career began at NASA where she was part of the spacecraft tracking team for early manned spacecraft flights. During this time she first gained her understanding of and enthusiasm for the accomplishments a tightly knit team of professionals could make in a short period of time. She has drawn upon that experience to coach highly successful teams that accomplished many large and complex goals over the years.
Mary Ann founded her own coaching company, Inside Track Coaching, Inc., and developed two highly successful programs: Embracing Your Retirement — providing retirement planning help for baby boomers; and Embracing Your Career — providing career transition coaching to those of all ages interested in exploring new career directions.
Mary Ann has a BS degree in Mathematics and an MBA in Executive Management and has recently completed class work for her degree in coaching at Coach University. She is also a member of the International Coach Federation (ICF) and the North Carolina Association of Personal and Business Coaches (NCAPBC).
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Dennis Mauk
Dennis is an experienced facilitator with a background in both management and sales. As a Service Manger in the franchised automobile industry, he developed sales, training, and customer satisfaction programs and personally resolved customer complaints. He excels in problem solving, coaching, and developing ideas to create and expand growth in organizations and businesses. He is a creative leader with a passion for customer satisfaction and a drive to do things right the first time.
Dennis is an independent contractor to 15 Community Colleges where he teaches a 6-hour recertification course for independent automobile dealers. He also developed and teaches a 12-bvhour new automobile dealer course for the Community College System of North Carolina, one of two approved by the DMV of North Carolina.
As an ordained minister with many years of experience in every aspect of church and spiritual development, he also offers council in spiritual direction for those who seek it.
Dennis is certified in: NC REAL Curriculum, Change Style Indicator, Denison Organizational Culture, and Discovery Learning’s Leadership Development 360, Goal Getter, and Paper Planes.
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