Our Community
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Higher Alignment Community
The Higher Alignment Community is a relationship-focused community that is inclusive, open, and non-discriminatory with straight, gay and lesbian individuals, and with singles and couples alike. We celebrate our differences, even though, at times, it may be difficult to do so. Since many in the community use Common Neutral Ground technology, it is a relaxed, playful environment where people can learn and grow.
The community is now well-established in Boulder after originally being located in the San Francisco Bay area. We invite you to check us out when you are in the area. You can also become part of the online community, especially since we are beginning to create satellite locations in other parts of the country.
Executive Management Team
The Executive Management Team establishes policies, determines the timing and development of programs, and provides guidance in several different functional areas. It operates in advisory status as well as providing functional support as needed in the day-to-day functioning of the organization. Its primary operational timeframe is six months to a year, although it does conduct annual reviews and generates 3-year projections. This team has been in existence for the last three years.
Luke Addington is our Director of Coaching Training and has been doing this for ten years. Luke has been the main enthusiast for expanding the Coaching program so that it can be made available to more people. He has also taken over the presentation of the Creative Uniqueness course as it directly relates to the coaching process. He is also certified as a Facilitator for many of the Higher Alignment courses.
Michael Catalano is our Director of Facilitator Training and has been doing this for the last five years. He is also heavily involved in and is writing books on the Authentic Life Expression program. He has been a strong proponent for policies and structures that have supported the organizations growth and development. As we all know, it is good to have at least one stickler around.
Anna Karin has been committed to this work for the last thirty years. She currently does new product development and is being prepared for the leadership of the next generation. She is currently living in Florida, but this does not prevent her from logging into our systems in Boulder, Colorado, and doing video editing and production work.
Larry Byram is the Founder of Higher Alignment, Creative Alignment and Alignment Technologies. He focuses now on Program Development. He has been working on this work for the last thirty years. He is mainly presenting courses and transferring the fourteen books he has written into website copy, with graphics.
Sandy Jaquith is a relative newcomer to our group, being in the work only four years. She is now the Director of Organization and Finance. She is also our legal counsel and performs various functions in marketing, as well. While she would not want to be identified as our Office Manager, she gets everyone else to do that for her, so in effect, she is that, as well. While some people think she is difficult, I think her redeeming quality is that she can admit when she does not know something, or when she is wrong (which she would say is rare).
Facilitators
Facilitators not only have to be aware of people’s creative patterns, but must also be able to focus the attention and interest of the group in constructive ways so it moves the process of learning forward. This requires an openness, curiosity and desire to explore possibilities with others while honoring who they are. Most important is group Common Neutral Ground skills where we learn to invite people to step into new opportunities.
Naomi Bauer is currently trained in leading Loving Our Creative Self, Owning Our Experience and Defensive Healing, and has led several playshops. She has been in the program for ten years. She has steadily engaged more of the Higher Alignment work than most practitioners. She has literally grown into her vision. She has become an advocate of the Agni yoga teachings, and reads most of the Alice Bailey work. She Co-Facilitates many of the offerings currently on the schedule.
Tom Faggiano was originally involved in this program when it began in California and currently resides in Santa Cruz. He is qualified to teach Creative Uniqueness and Common Neutral Ground classes.
Julia Sherman has been involved in the program for five years and is currently co-leading all public presentations regarding the Creative Assessment program, and becoming qualified to teach Creative Uniqueness.
Karen Thorson is the primary lead trainer for the Visionary Actualization class, and she has been a Co-Facilitator for Inner Seeing, Shaping Our Attractions, Healing Idealization, The Four Levels of Relationship and the Skills Development program. She has been involved in the work for fifteen years.
Luke Addington is one of the first individuals to become qualified in Co-Facilitating Higher Alignment courses. He has been in the work for seventeen years and has taught almost all the courses at one time or another. He currently focuses on Inner Seeing and Common Neutral Ground training.
Michael Catalano is in charge of the Facilitator Program, and he currently works with Naomi Bauer, who is a Coach, Facilitator and a partner in managing the process.
Sandy Jaquith, Diane Whiddon and Bodi Mack are currently Facilitator Trainees.
Coaches
Coaches have to develop an inner awareness of all of their own creative patterns to effectively be able to see and respond to different or similar patterns in others. They also have to have extremely good Common Neutral Ground skills and not be caught up in Attachment, Positions and Projections. Their commitment to engaging this process produces self-transformation, which helps them to be the most amazing people they can be.
Naomi Bauer has been coaching for the last two years. Naomi has pioneered a healing practice and is working on creating the Temple Beautiful experience where we feel fulfilled and radiant in our expression in the world.
Tom Faggiano has become the go-to person for college students in Santa Cruz, talking about which partners would be the most appropriate for them.
Steve Hudek has done a lot of coaching with Inventor Creative Expressions and spends a lot of time helping individuals with Defensive healing.
Karen Thorson is a chiropractor working with clients in energetic and personal healing work. She is also a Higher Alignment coach helping people resolve their issues in their relationships and family dynamics.
Certified Coaches are currently led by Luke Addington, who also is a therapist. Luke has a large, independent psychotherapy practice that includes many Higher Alignment clients. Luke has been doing relationship and family coaching for over the last ten years.
Michael Catalano has been focusing on Authentic Life Expression coaching for the last seven years.
Holly Froeschner, Brian Young, Rebecca Finoff, Diane Whiddon, Nola McDonald, Mihaly Bartalos, Aimee Denette, Kathy Kehe, Dale Hicks, Daniel Frangos, Beryl Gulya, Julia Sherman, Bodi Mack, Julia Tara, Ronda Loredo, Sandy Jaquith, Alex Osipowich, Chris Maldonado, Anna Karin, JoAnne Mann are Coaches in Training.
Web and Database Team
The Web and Database Team helps to provide the content and provide a framework for building membership and participation throughout the organization. This means we have several databases that are constantly being updated and managed so that everyone gets what they want when they want it. This group is currently taking on more responsibility for the development, distribution and feedback regarding Creative Assessments. Over time, they will be integrating and expanding online coaching appointment functionality and facilitating the availability of coaches to the larger group. We are thankful to these individuals for helping us get the work out to a larger audience.
Brian Young is currently leading the Web and Database Team and is responsible for the development of the Creative Assessment tools.
Tamzin Williams is our primary computer support person and helps with web issues.
Diane Whiddon is in charge of our Facebook and social media platforms, and blog content.
Tom Faggiano is the initial developer of our Creative Assessment database and currently chose the Zoom product for the webinar program.
Rakesh Kumar Khosla is our main Drupal developer and is responsible for the structure and design of our websites.
Joanne Mann is our data modeling guru and is overseeing the integration from all the locations into a central depository.
Sanjay Dey is our content presentation expert and makes sure that all of our graphics and text come together the way they should.
Audio and Video Webinar Team
The Audio and Video Webinar Team is responsible for capturing the content and making it available to a larger community. While we are based in Boulder, Colorado, our constituents are worldwide. This has required us to continually upgrade our audio, video and internet equipment so that we can serve constituents anywhere they are, and our A/V team has been tireless in keeping up with and adapting to these changes.
Ivan Efert is our videographer and has been around this work for over ten years.
Nancy Orr is a relative newcomer, having been in our work for a little over a year. She is currently one of the Webinar Managers, who integrates the video and sound for each class.
Steve Hudek is another one of our technical Webinar team, and has been responsible in the past for recording and video presentations.
Brian Young is our Master Webinar Manager, who has carried the ball while Joanne Mann currently works on other projects.
Anna Karin was one of our technical Webinar team and is currently working on post-production and editing so that products can be developed from the original events.
Joanne Mann was our original Master Webinar Manager and is now doing a variety of special projects.
Roger House is our Webinar Manager Emeritus, having struggled through the first year of our webinars with difficult technology integration problems.
Editing and Graphics Team
The Editing and Graphics Team is absolutely necessary to make this material more accessible to the large numbers of people that would find it valuable. Editors and graphics individuals spend many hours reviewing the material we put up to make sure it meets our standards. Many individuals have contributed in this way over the years and we are so grateful for their support.
Naomi Bauer has spent considerable time documenting Compatibility Factors, Motives, Attractions and Skills to clarify Creative Assessments. She has been also editing the class slides. She has often been thrown into administrative tasks that she hated until we could find someone else to do them. She gets lots of bonus points for this. Fortunately, she now gets to do mostly what she wants to do, and this has made her life much more enjoyable.
Tamzin Williams has contributed over many years to many of the books and publications by editing them and providing graphics support to illustrate the HA processes.
Allegra completed the final edit of the Common Neutral Ground document in record time. She has been with Higher Alignment for almost twenty years. She speaks many languages and is very picky about punctuation.
Diane Whiddon is our resident marketing expert and is responsible for our large-scale publications on iBooks and Amazon. She consults with us to make sure that our web technologies are expanding our visibility, particularly with social media.
Connie Garrett helps with class copy, promotional setup and final editing of critical materials. She is the most diligent editor we have ever had.
Tammarie Trodgon has been transcribing various classes to help reorganize information and make it available to new people in new ways.
Sandy Jaquith has been focused on clarifying and standardizing new material so that people will be able to quickly process it and think about it in new ways.
Support Team
The Support Team helps out in a million different ways, particularly around events. They prepare food, environments, and greet people when they come to an event. They are the front line of what makes Higher Alignment an effective organization. We could not do what we do without their support.
Ronda Loredo assists us in sending out Constant Contact newsletters with Sandy Jaquith. She also helps keep the offices organized and contributes to our event activities.
Audrey Gunn has supported the group with snacks, entertainment (especially her flute performances) and provides a healing force for the group.
Elizabeth Ferriera helps with party prep, food prep, greeting newcomers, and making them comfortable in the group with her warm, loving presence.
Susan Willians has been helpful in taking care of the entire group. She is a unifying force for bringing people together.
Linda Borkowski has been our key support person for meal and appetizer preparation and shows up to help at many events.
Heather Johnson helps keep our environment looking its best and helps the Facilitators to organize classroom activities and events.
Chris Abbot has been incredibly patient and supportive in making improvements in our infrastructure, putting new lights in, rewiring switches … well, what hasn’t he done?
Special Acknowledgements
Some people show up and startle us with their vision of how things should work. They contribute without making demands and they take responsibility for various areas of the organization just because they see the value of it in the world. We want to acknowledge these individuals for their contributions over the years. They stepped up when it was really needed. It is because of people like this that we can continue to improve the services we offer.
Rachel Trueblood has been a critical organizer in the early days of the organization coming to Boulder. Not only did she organize and teach the Improvisation group, but she was critical in writing and editing some of the early manuals about the differences in Creative Expressions. Some of the ways she presents the distinctions to this day are so funny that you do not know how to respond.
Sara Wilson has not only been an advocate for Visionaries and a primary instigator for women in business, but she brought a whole level of professionalism to the organization. Our policy statements and structures are directly a result of her dedication and commitment. While she is still a master coach, she now leads a nationwide women’s empowerment organization.
Tom Faggiano is the representative for Higher Alignment in Santa Cruz. He originally became involved when we were operating in San Francisco, California. He was the original instigator and implementer of our database profiling technology. Since then, he has been operating as a coach and now has legions of young UC Santa Cruz students who are trying to learn how to choose the right partner.
Gaier Dietrich is one of our long-time students and benefactors who saw the value of the work before anyone else, and has been committed to its expression ever since. She lives in Santa Cruz, California and has applied the work in all areas of her life.
Karen Thorson was part of the second generation of Coaches and Facilitators. The Inner Seeing program at this time was compressed into a two-week training program, and the Coaches and Facilitators had two weeks of application training, as well. What we discovered is that we develop Facilitators through trial and error and they had to be willing to explore and experiment with this work in their lives. Karen happened to be an Experimenter Extraordinaire. She was one of the first examples of using this work in every aspect of her life.
Karen Dyrenforth has invested a lot of time in the C7i children’s program and worked with Ardis as a board member of C7i. She now works with the Gay and Katie Hendricks program as a facilitator.
Ardis Hoffman was very dedicated to the C7i mission, which is to bring greater tools to parents and teachers, so they can better deal with their students’ creative differences. For three years she worked on this mission, which I believe is critical to our future. With Karen Dyrenforth and Jeannette Abshire, they worked for two years on exploring new ways to make the Higher Alignment technology more easily accepted.
Linda Stevenson was the first individual to see the potential of Higher Alignment principles in business. With Mary Stevenson and Linda Stevenson (no relation), we initially started Creative Alignment. Linda is incredibly sensitive to the politics and social dynamics of groups. She now does a program called Awakening Inquiry for individuals, organizations and communities. She is quite educated on organizational development and transformation and has been a great spokesperson for Alignment Technologies principles.
Mary Stevenson is a great Vedic astrologer, and author of Falling Over Reno. She uses the Higher Alignment principles and is great at simplifying them so that others can appreciate their insightful nature. She is also a great strategist and uses her passion to break down barriers. She now lives in the southwest.
Peter Fairfield was my acupuncturist in California and is a personal friend who became very interested in the Alignment Technology principles. He is also the Storyteller author of Deep Happy. I heartily recommend anything he is involved in.
Judy Terry is my current acupuncturist in Louisville, Colorado and is a personal friend who has also learned the Higher Alignment work. Judy has completed much of the Inner Seeing work, as well as all of the basic classes. She lives with her husband Patrick and dog, Bo.
Dale Hicks, who is also a Coach In Training, is a Shiatsu Practitioner and herbalist, who I also highly recommend.
Beryl Gulya joined Higher Alignment in 2002, when we were fairly new to the Boulder area. She was, and still is, a compatriot of Karen Thorson. They instituted puppy piles in Visionary events, and stirred up the group like few ever did. She was also critical in taking this work to Colorado Springs. She currently lives in Berkeley, California and is still coaching there.
Jeannette Abshire comes from a background of training teachers how to work with children. She dedicated several years to the C7i program with Karen Dyrenforth and Ardis Hoffman. She now primarily works with Integrated Learning Academy doing BrainGym to help retrain children’s brains for optimum performance.
Sandy Jaquith has functioned as the legal counsel for Higher Alignment Technologies for several years. Somehow, s
he finds the time to do a lot of the organization, participate in the Facilitator and Coaches training programs, and co-teach whenever there is an opening. She attributes this to her Orchestrator ways, without the control that is often associated with these activities. What I would like to acknowledge is her vulnerable, yet compassionate, attitude with everyone she meets.
Stan Anderson was our original webmaster from 2000 to 2006. He was always responsive to our last-minute changes and made it seem a lot easier than it really was. He helped promote classes and was always bringing together interesting groups of people where he saw connections no one else did. He now lives in California and Alaska.
Helen Ford was our first volunteer graphic designer who initially professionalized what we did as Higher Alignment, also knows as the Institute for Spiritual Partnership at that time. She also was one of the first recruiters to adopt the Higher Alignment Compatibility Factors in her search program. I love her and she is a really good person.
Daryl Ansted is one of the most creative and inclusive architects of human thought. He loves to come up with artistic presentations that challenge us to think in new ways. He now leads the Investigator group, and finds new ways to personally make Authentic Life Expression accessible to those he meets.
Laureli Shimayo was one of our early Facilitators and Coaches. She did extensive editing and helped promote this work between 2004 through 2010. She has pioneered new ways to use this work for lesbian audiences. Her website is thrive-wise.com.
Mike Seiler was one of our early coaches. He excelled at questioning the way we were presenting a lot of the information and brought a lot of insight about differences into the program.
Kit Brown was one of the first major Compassionates in the program and helped build the community of Compassionates and expand the availability of this work in Denver. She now lives in Aspen. She was incredibly helpful in building community by hosting parties and helping to anchor the Loving Our Creative Self class.
Curt Kinkead. What do you do with an Implementer who refuses to slow down because of their Act First nature? What do you tell a guy who carries a knife around with him all of the time so he can escape any situation by going directly through a wall? How can we be so lucky as to have a friend who is always happy to help others move, and is so good at packing that he never needs to tie anything down? Curt is the real deal when it comes to being a community organizer, as he continues to serve Marin County with his partner, Ruth Schwartz, in their food distribution program, Respecting Our Elders.
Beth Kuper is an angel. She goes around helping people, particularly children, to get the support they need. She has been an advocate of the Higher Alignment program for many years and has helped to promote many events for the last twenty years. She originally came to the program when it was in California and has been here in Boulder for more than ten years.
Rosemary O’Connor is a giver extraordinaire. After retiring, she spends more time now helping her neighbors and various organizations in a variety of ways. With Higher Alignment, she is always willing to come over and work on editing documents or helping the organization in some new way. One of her best friends is Beth Kuper and together they make quite a team.
Michael Catalano has been an MD (he is retiring in January) and heavily involved in baseball and skiing. For the last several years, he has become interested in the Alice Bailey work and has been volunteering at Boulder Sudbury School.
Rob Gersky is our original Vice President of Finance for Higher Alignment in the Bay area in California. He met his wife, Trina, who is incredibly aligned with him, through this work. They are now working on bringing up their children in the Higher Alignment way.
John Lundin-Martinez has assisted us in legal matters as a volunteer. While he emphasizes his toughness, he is actually a very caring and compassionate guy. Through the Higher Alignment work, he has learned a lot about working with children.
Dr. Lindsay Moore has been a great spokesperson for the Alice Bailey work. Her mastery of this topic is phenomenal. She has also been very kind with her consulting regarding copyright and patent issues. She is behind all of our discussions regarding how the Seven Rays relate to the Seven Creative Expressions of Higher Alignment.
Roger House has been trained as a coach in Higher Alignment, but is best known as the guy who made sure you got recording of the classes. This is because he was the first Webinar Manager, before we even knew what the title was. The amazing thing was how much time he spent recording all of the early classes. His patience is beyond the norm.
Ruth Schwartz is an incredibly productive and enduring member of the Higher Alignment community. She was always an amazing organizer and able to multi-task in a lot of different ways. With Curt, she founded Respecting Our Elders, an all-volunteer food rescue organization. They feed thousands of people every month. She also is highly aligned with her partner, and uses the Higher Alignment tools in her business, Nifty Paws Press.
Sharon Skylor is one of our original Facilitators and Coaches and was a strong supporter of the community in California. Without her constant participation, it would have been much harder to keep the group together. I admire her diligence and perseverance in exploring relationships to their fullest.
Ed Ellsworth was our first videographer and online promoter of Higher Alignment. Ed is an incredible community organizer and is committed to many great causes, including protecting dolphins and sacred sites around the world. He excels at community building.
Brian Maher was our first Vice President of Administration in California and is quite a pugnacious advocate for doing things in the lowest cost manner. His bottom-line orientation became notorious in the group, and prompted more donations because everyone thought we were poor and struggling. We appreciated his diligence, although nowadays, Michael Catalano is taking over this job.
Ardella Nathanael is a spiritual activist. She likes to use movement to put people in new positions so they can stretch themselves into their natural being. As a teacher of Paneurhythmy, she did this most of the time. She was a consistent visitor to our programs over several years.
Joanie McGovern is the heart and soul of the group in California. She has more natural enthusiasm in her toe than most people have in their entire body. She was in one of the first groups of Facilitators and Coaches, and uses the Higher Alignment work in many ways. She has made her relationships, rather than her work, her entire life. Her commitments to her friends and partners are legendary.
Akosh is a proactive protagonist, who wants to awaken people to the real choices they have. As an Inventor, he is committed to being a rebel that takes on the establishment. As a spiritual being, he knows there are more opportunities, but gets caught up in making each battle a do or die thing. You have to love him for his perseverance and dedication to the cause. The world would be a duller place without him.
If you want to nominate anyone for a Special Acknowledgement, let us know. We are also looking for more pictures of our group at events, including past events. We will also be working on a Testimonials page. If you have any good things to say about us, please send them to Sandy Jaquith at sandy@higheralignment.us.
Higher Alignment Community
The Higher Alignment Community is a relationship-focused community that is inclusive, open, and non-discriminatory with straight, gay and lesbian individuals, and with singles and couples alike. We celebrate our differences, even though, at times, it may be difficult to do so. Since many in the community use Common Neutral Ground technology, it is a relaxed, playful environment where people can learn and grow.
Executive Management Team
The Executive Management Team establishes policies, determines the timing and development of programs, and provides guidance in several different functional areas. It operates in advisory status as well as providing functional support as needed in the day-to-day functioning of the organization. Its primary operational timeframe is six months to a year, although it does conduct annual reviews and generates 3-year projections. This team has been in existence for the last three years.
Luke Addington is our Director of Coaching Training and has been doing this for ten years. Luke has been the main enthusiast for expanding the Coaching program so that it can be made available to more people. He has also taken over the presentation of the Creative Uniqueness course as it directly relates to the coaching process. He is also certified as a Facilitator for many of the Higher Alignment courses.
Michael Catalano is our Director of Facilitator Training and has been doing this for the last five years. He is also heavily involved in and is writing books on the Authentic Life Expression program. He has been a strong proponent for policies and structures that have supported the organizations growth and development. As we all know, it is good to have at least one stickler around.
Anna Karin has been committed to this work for the last thirty years. She currently does new product development and is being prepared for the leadership of the next generation. She is currently living in Florida, but this does not prevent her from logging into our systems in Boulder, Colorado, and doing video editing and production work.
Larry Byram is the Founder of Higher Alignment, Creative Alignment and Alignment Technologies. He focuses now on Program Development. He has been working on this work for the last thirty years. He is mainly presenting courses and transferring the fourteen books he has written into website copy, with graphics.
Sandy Jaquith is a relative newcomer to our group, being in the work only four years. She is now the Director of Organization and Finance. She is also our legal counsel and performs various functions in marketing, as well. While she would not want to be identified as our Office Manager, she gets everyone else to do that for her, so in effect, she is that, as well. While some people think she is difficult, I think her redeeming quality is that she can admit when she does not know something, or when she is wrong (which she would say is rare).
Facilitators
Facilitators not only have to be aware of people’s creative patterns, but must also be able to focus the attention and interest of the group in constructive ways so it moves the process of learning forward. This requires an openness, curiosity and desire to explore possibilities with others while honoring who they are. Most important is group Common Neutral Ground skills where we learn to invite people to step into new opportunities.
Naomi Bauer is currently trained in leading Loving Our Creative Self, Owning Our Experience and Defensive Healing, and has led several playshops. She has been in the program for ten years. She has steadily engaged more of the Higher Alignment work than most practitioners. She has literally grown into her vision. She has become an advocate of the Agni yoga teachings, and reads most of the Alice Bailey work. She Co-Facilitates many of the offerings currently on the schedule.
Tom Faggiano was originally involved in this program when it began in California and currently resides in Santa Cruz. He is qualified to teach Creative Uniqueness and Common Neutral Ground classes.
Julia Sherman has been involved in the program for five years and is currently co-leading all public presentations regarding the Creative Assessment program, and becoming qualified to teach Creative Uniqueness.
Karen Thorson is the primary lead trainer for the Visionary Actualization class, and she has been a Co-Facilitator for Inner Seeing, Shaping Our Attractions, Healing Idealization, The Four Levels of Relationship and the Skills Development program. She has been involved in the work for fifteen years.
Luke Addington is one of the first individuals to become qualified in Co-Facilitating Higher Alignment courses. He has been in the work for seventeen years and has taught almost all the courses at one time or another. He currently focuses on Inner Seeing and Common Neutral Ground training.
Michael Catalano is in charge of the Facilitator Program, and he currently works with Naomi Bauer, who is a Coach, Facilitator and a partner in managing the process.
Sandy Jaquith, Diane Whiddon and Bodi Mack are currently Facilitator Trainees.
Coaches
Coaches have to develop an inner awareness of all of their own creative patterns to effectively be able to see and respond to different or similar patterns in others. They also have to have extremely good Common Neutral Ground skills and not be caught up in Attachment, Positions and Projections. Their commitment to engaging this process produces self-transformation, which helps them to be the most amazing people they can be.
Naomi Bauer has been coaching for the last two years. Naomi has pioneered a healing practice and is working on creating the Temple Beautiful experience where we feel fulfilled and radiant in our expression in the world.
Tom Faggiano has become the go-to person for college students in Santa Cruz, talking about which partners would be the most appropriate for them.
Steve Hudek has done a lot of coaching with Inventor Creative Expressions and spends a lot of time helping individuals with Defensive healing.
Karen Thorson is a chiropractor working with clients in energetic and personal healing work. She is also a Higher Alignment coach helping people resolve their issues in their relationships and family dynamics.
Certified Coaches are currently led by Luke Addington, who also is a therapist. Luke has a large, independent psychotherapy practice that includes many Higher Alignment clients. Luke has been doing relationship and family coaching for over the last ten years.
Michael Catalano has been focusing on Authentic Life Expression coaching for the last seven years.
Holly Froeschner, Brian Young, Rebecca Finoff, Diane Whiddon, Nola McDonald, Mihaly Bartalos, Aimee Denette, Kathy Kehe, Dale Hicks, Daniel Frangos, Beryl Gulya, Julia Sherman, Bodi Mack, Julia Tara, Ronda Loredo, Sandy Jaquith, Alex Osipowich, Chris Maldonado, Anna Karin, JoAnne Mann are Coaches in Training.
Web and Database Team
The Web and Database Team helps to provide the content and provide a framework for building membership and participation throughout the organization. This means we have several databases that are constantly being updated and managed so that everyone gets what they want when they want it. This group is currently taking on more responsibility for the development, distribution and feedback regarding Creative Assessments. Over time, they will be integrating and expanding online coaching appointment functionality and facilitating the availability of coaches to the larger group. We are thankful to these individuals for helping us get the work out to a larger audience.
Brian Young is currently leading the Web and Database Team and is responsible for the development of the Creative Assessment tools.
Tamzin Williams is our primary computer support person and helps with web issues.
Diane Whiddon is in charge of our Facebook and social media platforms, and blog content.
Tom Faggiano is the initial developer of our Creative Assessment database and currently chose the Zoom product for the webinar program.
Rakesh Kumar Khosla is our main Drupal developer and is responsible for the structure and design of our websites.
Joanne Mann is our data modeling guru and is overseeing the integration from all the locations into a central depository.
Sanjay Dey is our content presentation expert and makes sure that all of our graphics and text come together the way they should.
Audio and Video Webinar Team
The Audio and Video Webinar Team is responsible for capturing the content and making it available to a larger community. While we are based in Boulder, Colorado, our constituents are worldwide. This has required us to continually upgrade our audio, video and internet equipment so that we can serve constituents anywhere they are, and our A/V team has been tireless in keeping up with and adapting to these changes.
Ivan Efert is our videographer and has been around this work for over ten years.
Nancy Orr is a relative newcomer, having been in our work for a little over a year. She is currently one of the Webinar Managers, who integrates the video and sound for each class.
Steve Hudek is another one of our technical Webinar team, and has been responsible in the past for recording and video presentations.
Brian Young is our Master Webinar Manager, who has carried the ball while Joanne Mann currently works on other projects.
Anna Karin was one of our technical Webinar team and is currently working on post-production and editing so that products can be developed from the original events.
Joanne Mann was our original Master Webinar Manager and is now doing a variety of special projects.
Roger House is our Webinar Manager Emeritus, having struggled through the first year of our webinars with difficult technology integration problems.
Editing and Graphics Team
The Editing and Graphics Team is absolutely necessary to make this material more accessible to the large numbers of people that would find it valuable. Editors and graphics individuals spend many hours reviewing the material we put up to make sure it meets our standards. Many individuals have contributed in this way over the years and we are so grateful for their support.
Naomi Bauer has spent considerable time documenting Compatibility Factors, Motives, Attractions and Skills to clarify Creative Assessments. She has been also editing the class slides. She has often been thrown into administrative tasks that she hated until we could find someone else to do them. She gets lots of bonus points for this. Fortunately, she now gets to do mostly what she wants to do, and this has made her life much more enjoyable.
Tamzin Williams has contributed over many years to many of the books and publications by editing them and providing graphics support to illustrate the HA processes.
Allegra completed the final edit of the Common Neutral Ground document in record time. She has been with Higher Alignment for almost twenty years. She speaks many languages and is very picky about punctuation.
Diane Whiddon is our resident marketing expert and is responsible for our large-scale publications on iBooks and Amazon. She consults with us to make sure that our web technologies are expanding our visibility, particularly with social media.
Connie Garrett helps with class copy, promotional setup and final editing of critical materials. She is the most diligent editor we have ever had.
Tammarie Trodgon has been transcribing various classes to help reorganize information and make it available to new people in new ways.
Sandy Jaquith has been focused on clarifying and standardizing new material so that people will be able to quickly process it and think about it in new ways.
Support Team
The Support Team helps out in a million different ways, particularly around events. They prepare food, environments, and greet people when they come to an event. They are the front line of what makes Higher Alignment an effective organization. We could not do what we do without their support.
Ronda Loredo assists us in sending out Constant Contact newsletters with Sandy Jaquith. She also helps keep the offices organized and contributes to our event activities.
Audrey Gunn has supported the group with snacks, entertainment (especially her flute performances) and provides a healing force for the group.
Elizabeth Ferriera helps with party prep, food prep, greeting newcomers, and making them comfortable in the group with her warm, loving presence.
Susan Willians has been helpful in taking care of the entire group. She is a unifying force for bringing people together.
Linda Borkowski has been our key support person for meal and appetizer preparation and shows up to help at many events.
Heather Johnson helps keep our environment looking its best and helps the Facilitators to organize classroom activities and events.
Chris Abbot has been incredibly patient and supportive in making improvements in our infrastructure, putting new lights in, rewiring switches … well, what hasn’t he done?
Special Acknowledgements
Some people show up and startle us with their vision of how things should work. They contribute without making demands and they take responsibility for various areas of the organization just because they see the value of it in the world. We want to acknowledge these individuals for their contributions over the years. They stepped up when it was really needed. It is because of people like this that we can continue to improve the services we offer.
Rachel Trueblood has been a critical organizer in the early days of the organization coming to Boulder. Not only did she organize and teach the Improvisation group, but she was critical in writing and editing some of the early manuals about the differences in Creative Expressions. Some of the ways she presents the distinctions to this day are so funny that you do not know how to respond.
Sara Wilson has not only been an advocate for Visionaries and a primary instigator for women in business, but she brought a whole level of professionalism to the organization. Our policy statements and structures are directly a result of her dedication and commitment. While she is still a master coach, she now leads a nationwide women’s empowerment organization.
Tom Faggiano is the representative for Higher Alignment in Santa Cruz. He originally became involved when we were operating in San Francisco, California. He was the original instigator and implementer of our database profiling technology. Since then, he has been operating as a coach and now has legions of young UC Santa Cruz students who are trying to learn how to choose the right partner.
Gaier Dietrich is one of our long-time students and benefactors who saw the value of the work before anyone else, and has been committed to its expression ever since. She lives in Santa Cruz, California and has applied the work in all areas of her life.
Karen Thorson was part of the second generation of Coaches and Facilitators. The Inner Seeing program at this time was compressed into a two-week training program, and the Coaches and Facilitators had two weeks of application training, as well. What we discovered is that we develop Facilitators through trial and error and they had to be willing to explore and experiment with this work in their lives. Karen happened to be an Experimenter Extraordinaire. She was one of the first examples of using this work in every aspect of her life.
Karen Dyrenforth has invested a lot of time in the C7i children’s program and worked with Ardis as a board member of C7i. She now works with the Gay and Katie Hendricks program as a facilitator.
Ardis Hoffman was very dedicated to the C7i mission, which is to bring greater tools to parents and teachers, so they can better deal with their students’ creative differences. For three years she worked on this mission, which I believe is critical to our future. With Karen Dyrenforth and Jeannette Abshire, they worked for two years on exploring new ways to make the Higher Alignment technology more easily accepted.
Linda Stevenson was the first individual to see the potential of Higher Alignment principles in business. With Mary Stevenson and Linda Stevenson (no relation), we initially started Creative Alignment. Linda is incredibly sensitive to the politics and social dynamics of groups. She now does a program called Awakening Inquiry for individuals, organizations and communities. She is quite educated on organizational development and transformation and has been a great spokesperson for Alignment Technologies principles.
Mary Stevenson is a great Vedic astrologer, and author of Falling Over Reno. She uses the Higher Alignment principles and is great at simplifying them so that others can appreciate their insightful nature. She is also a great strategist and uses her passion to break down barriers. She now lives in the southwest.
Peter Fairfield was my acupuncturist in California and is a personal friend who became very interested in the Alignment Technology principles. He is also the Storyteller author of Deep Happy. I heartily recommend anything he is involved in.
Judy Terry is my current acupuncturist in Louisville, Colorado and is a personal friend who has also learned the Higher Alignment work. Judy has completed much of the Inner Seeing work, as well as all of the basic classes. She lives with her husband Patrick and dog, Bo.
Dale Hicks, who is also a Coach In Training, is a Shiatsu Practitioner and herbalist, who I also highly recommend.
Beryl Gulya joined Higher Alignment in 2002, when we were fairly new to the Boulder area. She was, and still is, a compatriot of Karen Thorson. They instituted puppy piles in Visionary events, and stirred up the group like few ever did. She was also critical in taking this work to Colorado Springs. She currently lives in Berkeley, California and is still coaching there.
Jeannette Abshire comes from a background of training teachers how to work with children. She dedicated several years to the C7i program with Karen Dyrenforth and Ardis Hoffman. She now primarily works with Integrated Learning Academy doing BrainGym to help retrain children’s brains for optimum performance.
Sandy Jaquith has functioned as the legal counsel for Higher Alignment Technologies for several years. Somehow, s he finds the time to do a lot of the organization, participate in the Facilitator and Coaches training programs, and co-teach whenever there is an opening. She attributes this to her Orchestrator ways, without the control that is often associated with these activities. What I would like to acknowledge is her vulnerable, yet compassionate, attitude with everyone she meets.
Stan Anderson was our original webmaster from 2000 to 2006. He was always responsive to our last-minute changes and made it seem a lot easier than it really was. He helped promote classes and was always bringing together interesting groups of people where he saw connections no one else did. He now lives in California and Alaska.
Helen Ford was our first volunteer graphic designer who initially professionalized what we did as Higher Alignment, also knows as the Institute for Spiritual Partnership at that time. She also was one of the first recruiters to adopt the Higher Alignment Compatibility Factors in her search program. I love her and she is a really good person.
Daryl Ansted is one of the most creative and inclusive architects of human thought. He loves to come up with artistic presentations that challenge us to think in new ways. He now leads the Investigator group, and finds new ways to personally make Authentic Life Expression accessible to those he meets.
Laureli Shimayo was one of our early Facilitators and Coaches. She did extensive editing and helped promote this work between 2004 through 2010. She has pioneered new ways to use this work for lesbian audiences. Her website is thrive-wise.com.
Mike Seiler was one of our early coaches. He excelled at questioning the way we were presenting a lot of the information and brought a lot of insight about differences into the program.
Kit Brown was one of the first major Compassionates in the program and helped build the community of Compassionates and expand the availability of this work in Denver. She now lives in Aspen. She was incredibly helpful in building community by hosting parties and helping to anchor the Loving Our Creative Self class.
Curt Kinkead. What do you do with an Implementer who refuses to slow down because of their Act First nature? What do you tell a guy who carries a knife around with him all of the time so he can escape any situation by going directly through a wall? How can we be so lucky as to have a friend who is always happy to help others move, and is so good at packing that he never needs to tie anything down? Curt is the real deal when it comes to being a community organizer, as he continues to serve Marin County with his partner, Ruth Schwartz, in their food distribution program, Respecting Our Elders.
Beth Kuper is an angel. She goes around helping people, particularly children, to get the support they need. She has been an advocate of the Higher Alignment program for many years and has helped to promote many events for the last twenty years. She originally came to the program when it was in California and has been here in Boulder for more than ten years.
Rosemary O’Connor is a giver extraordinaire. After retiring, she spends more time now helping her neighbors and various organizations in a variety of ways. With Higher Alignment, she is always willing to come over and work on editing documents or helping the organization in some new way. One of her best friends is Beth Kuper and together they make quite a team.
Michael Catalano has been an MD (he is retiring in January) and heavily involved in baseball and skiing. For the last several years, he has become interested in the Alice Bailey work and has been volunteering at Boulder Sudbury School.
Rob Gersky is our original Vice President of Finance for Higher Alignment in the Bay area in California. He met his wife, Trina, who is incredibly aligned with him, through this work. They are now working on bringing up their children in the Higher Alignment way.
John Lundin-Martinez has assisted us in legal matters as a volunteer. While he emphasizes his toughness, he is actually a very caring and compassionate guy. Through the Higher Alignment work, he has learned a lot about working with children.
Dr. Lindsay Moore has been a great spokesperson for the Alice Bailey work. Her mastery of this topic is phenomenal. She has also been very kind with her consulting regarding copyright and patent issues. She is behind all of our discussions regarding how the Seven Rays relate to the Seven Creative Expressions of Higher Alignment.
Roger House has been trained as a coach in Higher Alignment, but is best known as the guy who made sure you got recording of the classes. This is because he was the first Webinar Manager, before we even knew what the title was. The amazing thing was how much time he spent recording all of the early classes. His patience is beyond the norm.
Ruth Schwartz is an incredibly productive and enduring member of the Higher Alignment community. She was always an amazing organizer and able to multi-task in a lot of different ways. With Curt, she founded Respecting Our Elders, an all-volunteer food rescue organization. They feed thousands of people every month. She also is highly aligned with her partner, and uses the Higher Alignment tools in her business, Nifty Paws Press.
Sharon Skylor is one of our original Facilitators and Coaches and was a strong supporter of the community in California. Without her constant participation, it would have been much harder to keep the group together. I admire her diligence and perseverance in exploring relationships to their fullest.
Ed Ellsworth was our first videographer and online promoter of Higher Alignment. Ed is an incredible community organizer and is committed to many great causes, including protecting dolphins and sacred sites around the world. He excels at community building.
Brian Maher was our first Vice President of Administration in California and is quite a pugnacious advocate for doing things in the lowest cost manner. His bottom-line orientation became notorious in the group, and prompted more donations because everyone thought we were poor and struggling. We appreciated his diligence, although nowadays, Michael Catalano is taking over this job.
Ardella Nathanael is a spiritual activist. She likes to use movement to put people in new positions so they can stretch themselves into their natural being. As a teacher of Paneurhythmy, she did this most of the time. She was a consistent visitor to our programs over several years.
Joanie McGovern is the heart and soul of the group in California. She has more natural enthusiasm in her toe than most people have in their entire body. She was in one of the first groups of Facilitators and Coaches, and uses the Higher Alignment work in many ways. She has made her relationships, rather than her work, her entire life. Her commitments to her friends and partners are legendary.
Akosh is a proactive protagonist, who wants to awaken people to the real choices they have. As an Inventor, he is committed to being a rebel that takes on the establishment. As a spiritual being, he knows there are more opportunities, but gets caught up in making each battle a do or die thing. You have to love him for his perseverance and dedication to the cause. The world would be a duller place without him.
If you want to nominate anyone for a Special Acknowledgement, let us know. We are also looking for more pictures of our group at events, including past events. We will also be working on a Testimonials page. If you have any good things to say about us, please send them to Sandy Jaquith at sandy@higheralignment.us.
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