
“Food, Faith, and Feelings” Podcast Episode from February 12, 2017

by Mike
by Mike

This episode of “The Dr Dionne Show” features a candid conversation about the experiences of three professional women who work in male-dominated professions. Are their experiences the same as women who work in other workplace environments? What types of assumptions and biases are made about them? How do they handle situations? Do good looks influence workplace dynamics? These questions and much more are discussed by the panel.
Jessica Rantamaki/Geo-Hydro Engineers
Geo-Hydro Engineers provides environmental consulting services, geotechnical engineering, construction materials testing, and special inspection. Their clients include owners (private and public), industry, developers, architects, structural engineers, and contractors.
Sherie Hodge/Skylark Media
Skylark Media is a small Atlanta design firm which specializes in providing creative solutions that sell. The minority-owned company, led by Sherie Hodge, an FAA Certified Remote UAV (Drone) Pilot, represents the company’s new Aerial Photography division. She also serves as the Director of Creative Services.
HOST: Dr. Dionne Wright Poulton
Dionne Wright Poulton, Ph.D., is an HR and Leadership Consultant, Educator, Author, Speaker, and Owner of Poulton Consulting Group, LLC, an HR and leadership consulting business specializing in diversity and inclusion, equity, bias, intercultural communication, adult learning, adult behavior, and conflict mediation. Since its inception in 2004, Poulton Consulting Group has worked with a wide range of diverse clients in the U.S. and Canada including many in the San Francisco tech and digital marketing industry; K-12 schools and higher education; and many corporate and service industries. Poulton Consulting Group is also a government-approved business for local, state and federal level contracts.
Dr. Wright Poulton is author of the acclaimed book “It’s Not Always Racist…but Sometimes It Is” which is an extension of her PhD dissertation at the University of Georgia where she researched the racial biases and assumptions of teachers. She is also a certified K-12 teacher whose work is inspired by her 16 years of cumulative experiences as a high school teacher and university instructor in public and private institutions in Canada and the United States. Additionally, Dr. Wright Poulton has earned professional degrees from San Francisco State University (M.A.), the University of Toronto/OISE (B.Ed.), and from Rice University (B.A.) in Houston, TX where she was a former NCAA Division I track and field scholarship athlete.
In 2014, Profiles In Diversity Journal identified Dr. Wright Poulton as “a woman to watch.” She has presented social commentary in print media in the U.S. and the United Kingdom, as well as on numerous radio shows including CBS Radio stations in Atlanta, GA and on Tavis Smiley’s Radio Show. “The Dr Dionne Show” debuted in 2016 on Business RadioX with a focus on smart dialogue about diversity, leadership, and behavior in the workplace and beyond.
Dr. Wright Poulton is originally from Toronto, Canada and is a former member of Canada’s National Track and Field Team. She currently lives with her husband and two daughters in Snellville, GA.
To book Dr. Dionne Poulton as a speaker for your next event, or to facilitate one of her innovative professional development workshops based on her PhD research, you can reach her through:
Email: dionne@poultonconsultinggroup.com
Phone: 404-323-3842 or 1-877-263-2227 (internationally)
Facebook: The Dr. Dionne Show
LinkedIn: @Dr Dionne (Wright) Poulton
Twitter: @DrDionnePoulton
For more information, visit Dr. Poulton’s business website: www.poultonconsultinggroup.com

by Mike

Cassandra Underwood/Talk About It Catering
Talk About It Catering is a non-traditional full-service catering company. In addition to catering events, they offer weekly meals, freezer meals and lunches. They can accommodate people with dietary restrictions.
by Mike

Jason Binder/Envision Alpharetta
Jason Binder is a small business owner and independent financial planner for the firm Acolyte Advisors. He and his wife, Nicolette, have two daughters, Cecilia and Maggie. They enjoy attending local events like Food Truck Alley or taking the girls to the parks and greenway.
Jason has a passion for service within Alpharetta and the greater North Fulton area. Never one to sit back, he takes responsibility and works with others to make a difference for the community. His activities in the areas of community service, civic responsibility and economic development include the following:
Mark Wyssbrod/Envision Alpharetta
Mark Wyssbrod has intertwined quality of work with small business economics, the importance of financial position and a tax strategy. He is referred to as a Small Business CFO™. As an Eagle Scout, he understands the significance of being prepared and, as an economist, he understands the worth of being efficient.
Mark has lived in the Northeast, Midwest and Southeast. This diverse background allows him to communicate well with individuals with different backgrounds, as well as understand their motivating factors. Mark has integrated improv in his business, which allows him to be a better active listener and to think creatively for “outside the box” solutions for his clients.
Mark earned his Bachelors of Science in Business and Economics with a concentration in Accounting at the University of Kentucky. He earned his Certified Public Accounting designation from Georgia in January 2002.
With an entrepreneurial spirit Mark has started several successful small businesses. A past business venture was the award winning Pro@ctive CPA. After attending a retreat in the spring of 2013 he made a decision to sell this company in order to spend more time with his family and community. Mark is a “local capitalist” and is a part owner of a local payroll company, sign company, water-collection and reuse company and development company.
Mark believes it is important to give back to his community and he does so with both his time and resources. Mark has been a temporary foster parent, a volunteer at a halfway house, supporter of numerous community activities and events (including the Alpharetta Veterans Memorial in 2015) and just completed his term as the co-chair of Leadership North Fulton. Prior to 2015, Mark volunteered over 180 hours per year; in 2015, Mark volunteered 494 hours; and in 2016 Mark volunteered over 600 hours. The increase in time invested in his community is a result of following a calling to selling his CPA firm and surviving a near-death event.
Mark has been recognized as a Business Person of Excellence by the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce. Additionally, the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce honored him as the 2013 Small Business Peron of the Year. This award was achieved for his focus on quality and commitment to his clients, team members and community. He has also been awarded the Five Star Wealth Manager Award for tax services since 2009 to 2013. In 2015, Mark was honored by the Georgia Society of CPA with the Public Service Award.
Stefanie Diaz/Mastermind Your Launch
Stefanie Diaz has always had a keen ability for developing marketing strategies for entrepreneurs, but it’s her ability to position startups for accelerated momentum through personal branding and content marketing that has become the cornerstone to her professional success. Her background includes being a strategic adviser to CEO’s spanning startup phase to over $100 million in annual revenue. She has led strategic partnerships with global retailers and Fortune 500 companies, as well as facilitated multi-million dollar government contracts. There is something magnetic about the energy of startup founders that draws Stefanie in. They’re hungry, driven, and committed to making positive change for themselves and the greater community. Learn more at MastermindYourLaunch.com.

by Mike

Ted Rykoski/Sandler Training
Whether you are an entrepreneur entirely responsible for everything in your business, or a leader in any size organization, Sandler Training can help you identify the right solutions to help you achieve the goals you have for yourself and your teams. Sandler Training’s global network helps businesses with solutions for customer service, sales, and sales management wherever they are on the globe. Sandler’s fully customization training allows them to effectively serve clients in a variety of industries and company sizes. Their clients are in IT, banking, healthcare and many others area, and include small to mid-size through large organizations.
Bryon Evje/Village Vesl
Village Vesl is all about community, for and between community members. Serving residents and visitors of Alpharetta, Milton, Roswell and other Georgia communities, Village Vesl provides information that truly matters – as it happens – in a trusted environment that all participants are passionate about and have a vested interest in – their town. Vesl creates for local residents and businesses a mobile community that enables real-time, location-based communication.
Baha Zeidan/Azalea Health
Azalea Health is a leading provider of cloud-based healthcare solutions and services. The complete Azalea solution provides Electronic Health Records (EHR), Practice Management (PM), Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) billing services, as well as Patient Health Records Portal, and a mobile mHealth application. With a focus on patient engagement, Azalea’s integrated solution has the flexibility to accommodate multiple specialties of any size practice and can immediately improve workflow as well as revenue cycle. The organization also provides tools and resources to help customers navigate the various requirements of MACRA, Meaningful Use, ICD-10 and other regulatory impacts. For more information, visit AzaleaHealth.com or call (877) 777-7686.

by Mike
by Mike

Dan Williams and Allen Hoskyn work for separate organizations but have been partnering together over the past six years around community engagement and leadership development. They fundamentally believe that God is already at work in the community, people are the greatest asset within a community, and local leaders are the most effective and powerful change agents. Their partnership as well as the community that has developed around Impact 46 is based on shared values and increasingly shared outcomes rather than organizational affiliation or commitments.
Dan Williams/Sports Serve
Dan is the founder of Sports Serve, a non-profit organization dedicated to leadership development through sport. Sports Serve impacts families and communities by developing leaders among children and youth. It also serves as a catalyst, resource and partner for other community leaders and organizations committed to community transformation. Sport is a powerful vehicle for change.
Allen Hoskyn/FCS Ministries and Impact 46
Allen currently works as a community pastor for FCS Ministries with a focus on the city of Lawrenceville. He is in the process of launching a new non-profit that has emerged out of the work of Impact 46.
Impact 46 began six years ago as leaders from the six sectors of the community – church, nonprofit, business, government, school, and neighborhood – began to voice discontent and dissatisfaction for the city of Lawrenceville. Using the principles of Asset Based Community Development (ABCD), community difference makers began to gather with the hopes of seeing individuals, families, neighborhoods, and the city transformed.
by Mike

J.D. Crowe/Southeast Mortgage
Southeast Mortgage is a full-service Georgia mortgage lender offering FHA Loans, VA Loans and Conventional loans. They can assist you with your next home loan or refinance your current primary residence, second home, or investment property. Southeast Mortgage is also licensed in Alabama, Florida and South Carolina, allowing them to extend their mortgage lending services to out-of-state clients. One of the few Georgia mortgage lenders with processing, underwriting and document preparation all housed in Atlanta to serve you better.
Southeast Mortgage was founded in 1993 and the leadership team has assembled a dedicated group of mortgage professionals with extensive experience in client relations and all aspects of the mortgage industry. With a qualified and enthusiastic team of professionals, the company continues to experience unparalleled growth.
Julie Denise/FranNet Atlanta
FranNet Atlanta clients are interested in becoming business owners by purchasing a franchise business. This is a critical decision in someone’s life and each situation is vastly different. FranNet helps by first completely understanding your situation, providing franchise education, assessing your skills, and helping you formulate a solid success plan. They research businesses that fit that plan, make those introductions, and guide them through the research. This service is free to clients; they are like executive recruiters for franchisors. The firm is national and all businesses are scrutinized before they work with them.
Matt Reeves/Andersen, Tate & Carr Law Firm
Andersen, Tate & Carr, P.C. is known for its full-service approach to legal services. Their attorneys adeptly handle a range of legal issues including civil litigation, real estate, business law, corporate finance, employment law, estate planning and probate, family law, personal injury and criminal defense.
When a client’s legal matters involve different practice areas, they are poised to quickly and comprehensively address any aspect with a team approach. For an in-depth review of any business-oriented or individual legal concern, contact Andersen, Tate & Carr, P.C. to schedule a consultation.
by Mike

Paul Friederichsen/The Blake Project
The Blake Project is a strategic brand consultancy with extensive experience helping brands gain an advantage in the mind of the customer. With proven proprietary tools and techniques, they help brands break through complex marketing challenges, moving them from brand awareness to brand insistence – where there are no substitutes.
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