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Doug Filter

Doug Filter

Doug is a business coach and consultant. Early in Doug’s career he read Steven Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” which is still one of the most influential books he’s continue reading...
Read Doug's Bio
Lorraine Call

Lorraine Call

Lorraine is a passionate organizational development coach and consultant with experience in both nonprofit and for-profit arenas. Lorraine’s expertise is in meeting people where continue reading...
Read Lorraine's Bio
Sherri Kroonenberg

Sherri Kroonenberg

Sherri Kroonenberg is a seasoned leader in the nonprofit sector and the financial services industry. She served as the Executive Director, No Barriers USA, and the Chief Program/COO continue reading...
Read Sherri's Bio
Cindy Johnson

Cindy Johnson

Cindy Johnson is an Executive Leader who oversees education, small groups, hospitality and leadership development for Denver First Church, a large non-profit in Colorado. continue reading...
Read Cindy's Bio
John Helmick

John Helmick

John Helmick holds a Ph.D. from Miami University (Ohio), is a business owner for 25+ years, and a business and personal growth coach. Early in John’s career, he led R&D teams continue reading...
Read John's Bio
Don Diehl

Don Diehl

While partnering with business and non-profit leaders for coaching and leadership development, Don also served in a variety of executive leadership roles across multiple.... continue reading...
Read Don's Bio

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Doug Filter

Doug Filter

Doug is a business coach and consultant. Early in Doug’s career he read Steven Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” which is still one of the most influential books he’s read. Habit #5 is “seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Anyone who knows Doug will agree he approaches virtually every challenge and opportunity with this overarching philosophy.
With over 25 years of experience, he worked with companies ranging from a few employees to tens of thousands! Over Doug’s career, he
  • built new teams from the ground up,
  • transformed organizations from good to great,
  • helped propel sales departments to their best performance ever and
  • guided organizations through loss and crisis as an interim executive.
Doug is passionate about helping organizations, teams and individuals thrive! He is a natural communicator and problem solver, meeting people where they are. His positive energy and can-do approach are contagious! Like so many clients, without knowing how it happened, you may find yourself repeating some of his “Doug-isms” or creating an award based on something he said.
He holds a BA in Accounting from Cedarville University in Cedarville, OH and an MBA from St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, PA.
And yes, Doug and his wife Melissa do own a “little dog” named Oreo. He is a harlequin Great Dane with a HUGE heart and is featured in many family pictures.

Lorraine Call

Lorraine is a passionate organizational development coach and consultant with experience in both nonprofit and for-profit arenas. Lorraine’s expertise is in meeting people where they’re at and helping them tap into their personal motivation and accountability, to maintain continuous growth. As a prior front-line leader, she brings an understanding of how to increase performance, while fostering excellence in values.

She brings over 28 years of leadership in:
  • Growing leaders
  • Increasing individual and team performance
  • Improving processes for system excellence
  • Onboarding and growing effective teams
  • Establishing and improving organizational culture
Lorraine put herself through college, yet she struggled to retain the information taught in a typical college setting. It wasn’t until she went to work for a young and agile telecommunications company that she understood her learning style and the methods for training and strengthening others. She is grateful for her diverse journey where she has had the opportunity to work under great leaders and learn from their example. During her career, has had the opportunity to pass on that example to others. One opportunity was a consulting project with a large telecom training organization. While debriefing her consulting engagement with them, the Sr. Manager said, “I was concerned to have you come in and work with us because I figured you’d be like everyone else and pick us apart. You were different. You were someone from whom we could learn and you lifted us.”
Lorraine has been married to her husband, James, for 25 years and they have two sons. She is an avid reader, loves weightlifting and running and is a pretty good cook. Lorraine sees everyday as an opportunity to foster, promote and model loving relationships with those she serves.
Sherri Kroonenberg

Sherri Kroonenberg

Sherri Kroonenberg is a seasoned leader in the nonprofit sector and the financial services industry. She served as the Executive Director, No Barriers USA, and the Chief Program/COO for Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Denver.  She currently serves as a consultant with the Great Dane Group.

She also served as the National General Manager and SVP of Fidelity Investments, leading 5,500 people across the US. Her team was responsible for delivering service and financial consulting for individual investors. She came to Fidelity from Charles Schwab where she spent nearly 15 years with the firm.

Sherri has a deep commitment to the betterment of our communities and people through leadership and involvement in the nonprofit sector. Her experience includes board service, executive leadership, volunteer development and fundraising. She currently serves as a National Trustee and Board Emeritus for the Foundation Fighting Blindness, and the Board of Directors for No Barriers.  In addition, she serves on the Finance Committee for her local church.

She holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Denver, Graduate School of Business. Sherri has a deep passion for adventure and overcoming adversities. Her husband has Usher Syndrome – leading cause of deaf/blindness, but that doesn’t stop them! Together, they have summited Mt. Kilimanjaro, tandem mountain biked Kokopelli and Scotland and went sky diving!

Sherri’s favorite mantra is: What’s Possible! It’s not a question, but rather a statement that fuels a desire to reach for excellence!

Cindy Johnson

Cindy Johnson is an Executive Leader who oversees education, small groups, hospitality and leadership development for Denver First Church, a large non-profit in Colorado. Cindy believes each person is designed with a specific purpose or call on their life. She encourages personal transformation through teaching, mentoring, and coaching. In addition to her leadership responsibilities, she is a frequent public speaker, writer and curriculum developer with almost 30 publications to date.
Right from the start, Cindy was teaching and coaching corporate leaders around the country with Mobil Oil. Today, with 25+ years of corporate and non-profit experience, one of her passions is to help people discover ‘what should I do with my life?’ utilizing assessments and other tools as a certified coach. She also helps lead the Denver Jobs Network which assists job seekers find meaning and new opportunities.
Cindy holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Education from the University of Colorado, is a certified coach and is an ordained elder in the Church of the Nazarene. Her Strengths include Learner, Input, Connectedness, Strategic, and Relator. She enjoys a good cup of coffee, cooking, a long walk in the park and is always up for shopping!

John Helmick

“If you want to change your life, you have to change something that you do every day.”
– John Maxwell
John Helmick holds a Ph.D. from Miami University (Ohio), is a business owner for 25+ years, and a business and personal growth coach. Early in John’s career, he led R&D teams in the Consumer Pharmaceutical industry. With a crystal clear vision of starting his own business, he left that career to serve the real estate community.
John has followed and studied the works of John Maxwell for over 30 years which inspired him to become a John Maxwell certified trainer and coach. Those that know John know that he loves books and personal growth. As a voracious reader, one of the first books that inspired him was the classic book by Dale Carnegie, “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. John believes that personal growth is not an option. If you want to be a better leader, business owner, or manager, you have to grow yourself – every day.
John’s strengths lie in the areas of:
  • Developing Personal Growth Plans & Coaching
  • Developing Business Start Up Plans/Strategies & Coaching
  • Leadership Training
John and his wife Sue of over 34 years, live in SW Ohio and are enjoying their first Grand Baby, Jack. John loves to be on a lake and bass fish. You can often find him on lakes in Michigan and Virginia with his fishing buddies.
Don Diehl

Don Diehl

Don Diehl’s personal mission statement: My life-purpose is to coach, equip, and encourage leaders, of all ages, to discover their God-given strengths and apply them to life and leadership.
While partnering with business and non-profit leaders for coaching and leadership development, he also served in a variety of executive leadership roles across multiple organizations.
Discovering his personal Strengths® launched him on a journey to live and work into his top talents. The natural result was to engage his family, corporate and non-profit teams in discovering their Strengths® and leading them in practical ways of application.
Don has trained and engaged well over 1,000 people in leadership development. Possibly the greatest endorsement on Don’s coaching and leadership equipping can be seen in these three comments:
  • “He is really more like a friend than just a business coach.”
  • “He challenged me and held me accountable for what I committed to do, and made me accomplish so much more (and faster) than I ever thought I could”.
  • “He taught me so much about leading people and raising up leaders so I can keep focusing on what is critical to me!”
Before stepping into a partnership with The Great Dane Group, Don was an Executive Coach for Ramsey Solutions (a Dave Ramsey organization) and the EntreLeadership division. Don’s role was to equip and coach CEO’s and executive team leaders with teams from 2 to 250+ and annual revenues from $500,000 through over $50 million dollars annually.
Don’s coaching skills focus on relationship-first, then helping the leader discover and develop their unique strengths. Don believes that effective coaching is best achieved through meeting in consistent rhythms for accountability, team building strategies, and envisioning organizational growth. A critical criteria for a successful coaching partnership is
  • courage to face difficult decisions,
  • discipline to carry through,
  • humility to present yourself as a growing leader