Kathy Washatka, Manager
Kathy has over 30 years of training and organizational development experience working with individuals, businesses and organizations throughout Washington State.
Her experience includes 22 years at Whatcom Educational Credit Union where she was vice-president for operations, human resource specialist, trainer and organizational developer.
Most recently, Kathy has worked as an independent consultant providing management training, facilitation, and professional development. Many of her clients have been non profit organizations and she has worked with both staff and boards helping them capitalize on their strengths as they strive to turn their vision into reality.
Kathy has been recognized locally by the Bellingham Chamber of Commerce for her ongoing contributions to the business community. She holds a master’s degree in Applied Behavioral Science with a focus on Management and Consulting from Bastyr University’s Leadership Institute of Seattle.
Dr. Anne Cummings, Instructor
Dr. Anne Cummings has designed, led and evaluated leadership workshops for over 20 years. Whether developing senior leaders of Fortune 100 companies, or Executive Directors of social service agencies, or middle managers from multi-national organizations, Anne integrates students’ professional experiences with the latest management research and strategies. She takes a very active approach to learning, and believes that all leaders benefit from integrating empirical “best practices” with an analytical, yet individualized, study of their current context. She designed and delivered the inaugural Women and Leadership workshop for NWTI in 2004, and is happy to return this summer to work with another exciting group of women in the Pacific Northwest.
Since 2004, Anne has been an Associate Professor of Management at the University of Minnesota-Duluth (UMD), where she teaches Organizational Behavior, Building and Leading Teams, and Negotiations to both undergraduates and executive MBAs. Prior to joining UMD, Dr. Cummings spent eight years on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, where the concerns of her MBA and PhD students inspired her to design the first Women and Leadership Executive Education program for middle and senior executives at Wharton. In 2003, she won the coveted David W. Hauck teaching award at Wharton for her ability to lead, stimulate and challenge students. Anne returns to Philadelphia several times a year, continuing to deliver Executive Education programs for this highly ranked Business school.
Dr. Cummings’ research focuses on how organizational systems and leadership behaviors enhance and maintain creative and useful contributions from employees. She has studied how networks and problem solving styles are related to these contributions, and her research has appeared in the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, California Management Review, Journal of Organizational Behavior, and Leadership Quarterly. She has recently been working with Women’s World Banking, to study how organizational systems should be structured to best support women leaders in microfinance institutions in the third world.
A participant in Wharton’s Mt. Everest Trek in 2000 and a frequent recreational kayaker, Dr. Cumming enjoys leadership development experiences that involve social, reflective, and physical challenges as well as intellectual stimulation. Her commitment to developing leadership skills among women in particular was inspired by her leadership development work in a variety of education and management positions with Planned Parenthood in Wisconsin before she obtained her Ph.D.