2024 Breakout Session Speakers

Session 1 – 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM

The Dark Side of Resilience
Angella Dagenhart – Volvo Construction Equipment, Digital Product Manager

Resilience has been increasingly touted as a trait to be worn like a badge of honor, a trend magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic. And, while maintaining your life’s cadence during tumultuous times is commendable, it can take a toll both personally and professionally. In this presentation, Angella Dagenhart shares how the death of her son exposed her to the dangers of invulnerability, the price of a get-shit-done-regardless attitude, and what recovery looks like.

Live and Lead With Purpose
Katie Sandoe – Light Echo Co., Founder & Chief Illumination Officer

It starts with you! New research in business is revealing something extraordinary, and most leaders are missing it. Whether it’s your employees, customers, or clients, they’re looking for something different…from YOU. Do you know what that is? This session will share the latest research, powerful insights, groundbreaking tactics to transform your leadership, your organization, and (if you want) your life.

Growth Comes When We Move From Our Comfort Zones
Kim Nash – Thriv, LLC, Owner

To grow or to reach our goals/desires, we must be willing to be uncomfortable. I finally surrendered and moved from my comfort zone, and learned many lessons along the way. Overcoming the fear of moving from our comfort zone requires us to take risks which can be scary. In this session, I will share some practical ways to overcome the fear and move forward.

Session 2 – 1:30 PM – 2:30 PM

Targeted Success: Digital Marketing Strategies for Central PA Businesses
Colleen Jones – Martin Communications, Media Director

Join Martin Communications for an insightful session focused on practical, clear, and honest communication about digital marketing tailored for central PA businesses.

Using our first-hand knowledge of central PA’s business community, we’ll explore the most effective targeting options in our region. Discover how to connect with local B2B and B2C customers using strategies like local search and geotargeting, all explained in language that makes sense. We’ll also share case studies that show these strategies in action.

Attendees will leave with a clear understanding of digital marketing targeting, and how it can be applied to boost your business’s online presence in central PA, so you’ll be ready to make informed, confident marketing decisions.

6 Steps to Better Listening
Tom Kaden – Someone To Tell It To, Co-CEO
Michael Gingrich – Someone To Tell It To, Co-CEO
Angie Dickinson, – Someone To Tell It To, Chief Listening Officer

The world is hyper-connected technologically, but perhaps more disconnected than ever before, and STTIT aims to help the world to listen. There is a loneliness epidemic gripping our world where people aren’t being heard, mental illness is increasing, and people are talking over and around one another. In the early years of STTIT’s existence, the two co-founders/co-CEO’s did most of the listening to individuals, groups, and organizations. But the world started to see and experience the need for what STTIT provides. As it did, more people reached out for care, support, listening training, and listening education. That created the need to systematize what was initially an idea, turning it into something that could be sustained, replicated, and grown to reach even more people. In the past two years, STTIT’s Chief Listening Officer Angie Dickinson, has created a model to raise up more volunteer listeners, trainers, and educators to help the world to listen with more empathy, less judgment, more care, less conflict, more compassion, and less division – in the workplace and throughout the culture. Our 6 Module Training helps increases productivity, helps address mental health challenges, highlights empathy in the workplace, and how to simply be a better human being in society.

Supporting Wellness Through Interior Design
Julie Estes – Carlisle Design Interiors & Consulting Group, Owner & Principle Designer

Wellness-oriented interior design prioritizes the well-being, relaxation and even health of both guests and employees in the workplace. This design approach can be considered for corporate offices as well as home offices. More than just creating an aesthetically pleasing space, the intentional selection of color, lighting, materials and textures can provide the right levels of calm and rejuvenation. Wellness Design enhances your experience in the space leading to furthered benefits of increased productivity, loyalty, and even revenue.

Session 3 – 2:40 PM – 3:40 PM

The Magnificent Power of Failing
Deb Ellenberg – Sandler Training, VP of Business Development

Knowing that growth happens when we step out of our comfort zones, and doing so means we might fail, what happens when we fail or fail to perform as expected? What beliefs do you embrace about failing? Are those beliefs empowering you to OR limiting you from stepping out of your comfort zone? Join me for the Magnificent Power of Failing and we’ll address how our thoughts, actions and words impact our outcomes.

When you fail or don’t perform at your best, what are the thoughts that run through your head? What are the things you do and say that “lift you up” after feeling like you’ve been “knocked down”? Join me for the Magnificent Power of Failing and we’ll address the power of our beliefs, how our beliefs about failing impact our results, and define key strategies that enable us to FAIL-UP.

The Pursuit of Work-Life Balance with Grace
Toni Lynn Mark – The Salvation Army Harrisburg, Resource Development Director

Working mothers and caregivers take care of some of the heaviest loads. They are often juggling multiple responsibilities in the home and in the workplace, and none of those responsibilities feel they can be delegated elsewhere. Women end up responding to the pressure by doing the daily dance of “giving to one” by “stealing from the other”, but ultimately leave feeling exhausted, guilty and like they are failing everyone. Society does us no favors with the narrative that peaceful work-life balance is possible if we could just figure it out. (Ater all, all our friends and colleagues on social media are nailing it, right?).

This talk is intended to expose the truth for so many professional mothers and caretakers – that it feels downright impossible to find that peaceful “work-life balance” that everyone talks about. This isn’t a defeating topic meant to discourage us from trying though. Rather, it is encouragement that we can tackle this pressure with grace. By normalizing imperfection, we can find the peace we all yearn for and, in turn, be an even better colleague as we share that grace with others.