Our Team

Sally Breyley Parker

Sally Breyley Parker has worked extensively with business, governmental, and academic organizations to enhance organizational health and well-being. Through her work, she has contributed expertise in organizational culture, strategy, design, multi-party collaboration, leadership development, and sustainability. Her passion is social process innovations that tap the genius of natural systems to release the authentic power of the human spirit. The outcomes are inventive strategies, innovative designs, and transformed businesses grounded in a deep sense of purpose.

Sally has long been a proponent of biomimicry, the conscious emulation of life’s genius. Using a natural systems lens, she draws upon the lessons learned from organisms and ecosystems as they have evolved over 3.8 billion years to help businesses flourish and strengthen their health and wellbeing as organizations. In addition to biomimicry and biology, her work integrates systems thinking and organizational learning, Gestalt theory and practice, Theory U, (W)holistic Appreciative Inquiry, polarity thinking, design, and cultural anthropology.

Prior to forming TimeZero Enterprises, Sally was a founding partner and President of Currere, Inc. an organization development and design firm where she worked with a wide variety of organizations and collaborations to foster transformation and enhanced performance. She facilitated numerous strategy and organization design efforts, where her process supported organization members to clarify purpose and soul so that organizational strategy and design could be solidly grounded in the organization’s bedrock. Sally was invited to present her work in trans-organizational design at the Academy of Management and received a Telly Bronze Award in 2007 for her contributions as content consultant to IdeaStream, Designed to Perform.

She is a certified Gestalt practitioner and faculty for the Gestalt Center for Organization and Systems Development in Cleveland OH and Seattle, WA. She is also certified in Advanced Strategic Organization Design (University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business Center for Effective Organizations). She has completed the Foundation Program in Theory U through the Presencing Institute, as well as programs in Appreciative Inquiry, leadership and team development, strategic planning, and change management through Yale University, Harvard College, The Cape Cod Institute, and Case Western Reserve University. Publications include numerous articles on sustainability and she is a contributor to Organizing for Sustainability Volume One and Organization Development and Change by Thomas G. Cummings and Christopher G. Worley, 9th edition.

Education: Sally holds a BA Interior Design, a BS Cultural Anthropology, and an MA Cultural Anthropology (coursework) from Kent State University. She holds certificates in Advanced Strategic Organization Design from the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, and in Organization and Systems Development from The Gestalt Institute of Cleveland and the Gestalt International Study Center.

Argerie Vasilakes

Argerie Vasilakes works with change-makers to grow flourishing enterprises and thriving leaders in all sectors: public, private, and non-profit. A seasoned organization development executive, she has created and led departments for OD, Global Learning and Development and sales training. She has led and consulted on efforts in worldwide culture change, leadership development and change management. In 2015 she participated at the UN in the launch of the Flourish Prizes to honor businesses which are agents of world benefit.

Argerie's organizational work complements her coaching work with individual professionals at all career stages. Her executive coaching prepared a leadership team to expand market share in a competitive industry. She co-designed and facilitated a year-long community of practice with mid-career internal OD practitioners from around the country. This pioneering initiative worked to improve the practitioners’ effectiveness in interacting with internal clients. Her article about that experience, “Transforming Ourselves to Transform our Organizations: Insights about an internal Practice Community,” appears in the October 2017 issue of The OD Practitioner.

As an advisory board member for Ursuline University’s socially-conscious MBA and adjunct professor there, Argerie focuses on the environmental conditions, such as culture and infrastructure, that create flourishing systems. She originated an MBA-level course on socially conscious human resources. She is also on the board of a socially conscious business in Florida and of a network of women's choruses, where she is driving an initiative to create "a more networked network" of nearly 100 choruses around North America.

Argerie was the GOJO OD Fellow from 2015 to 2016. She holds an M.Ed. from Cleveland State University, a Masters of Science in Positive Organization Development from Case Western Reserve University, a BA from Chatham University with a major in Communications, and certifications and honors in learning and OD practice and leadership.

Karen McCague

Karen McCague has spent much of her 30-year career promoting workforce productivity, engagement, communications, collaboration and knowledge sharing through technology. Her focus has always been the people side. How do you inspire people to work together? How do you help them share their knowledge with others? How do you break down the human barriers that exist in organizations to fully leverage the whole organization’s talent diversity and the power of the organizational network? Finding the answers to these challenges has been the driving force for Karen’s career choices and learning investments. In 2014 she was awarded the Women in Cable TV Technology Catalyst award that recognizes professional success in meeting these challenges. Technology has no value if people aren’t using it!

Karen is a Prosci-certified organizational change management practitioner and a recent Polarity Thinking Mastery graduate. She has worked mainly in large corporations serving in senior leadership roles, and as a change leader, in multiple disciplines. Most recently, she was the Vice President, Workforce Services for a world-class media company. Karen is also an entrepreneur. She was co-founder of Pangaea.Net, a company that focused on internet technologies to bring global project teams together on a common virtual platform. In 2008, she was awarded an Innovation Fellowship and chartered with nurturing innovative business ideas into viable businesses..

Karen’s early career and formal education was spent in the natural sciences. She studied environmental science, geology and chemistry in her undergraduate and graduate degree pursuits. She was the Lead Environmental Scientist for a large environmental remediation firm. Her heart remains rooted in contributing to making the planet a better, greener place.

Ilma Barros Pose

Ilma Barros Pose has advised organizations and leaders in some of the world's largest organizations. By focusing on strengths and supporting a deeper connection to purpose, she has successfully facilitated numerous multi-stakeholder, large-scale strategy and change projects for organizations, government, and industries throughout the world. She has spoken globally and has led numerous seminars and workshops in Appreciative Inquiry.

A sustainability scholar and practitioner of Appreciative Inquiry, Ilma believes in the power of connection ... to ourselves, each other, and the world because connected people, teams, organizations, and communities help lead to a thriving world. She is a Distinguished Fellow at the Fowler Center for Sustainable Value at Case Western Reserve University where she co-facilitated the Appreciative Inquiry Summit with David Cooperrider and Ron Fry at the Flourish & Prosper Global Forum in 2014.

Ilma was president of Infinity International where she facilitated the Global Forum Latin America, and was a senior consultant for the Federation of Industries of the State of Parana. She was a consultant to the office of the President of Brazil, the United Nations, and the World Bank. In a partnership with Case Western Reserve, she also delivered the Appreciative Inquiry Certificate Program in Brazil.

Ilma is part of the core team of the Prescencing Institute where she is a faculty for the Prescencing Foundation Program. She is an ELIAS Fellow (Emerging Leaders for Innovation Across Systems) and a past Assistant Professor of Business at the State University of New York and L'Moyne College.

Illma Barros, Ph.D., received her doctorate in organizational behavior from Case Western Reserve University where her research and teaching focus on leadership development, sustainability, and organizational change. In addition to her academic experience and consulting work, Ilma is a co-author of the book, Flourishing Enterprise, the New Spirit of Business, and of numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals. She has also spoke at The Future Cities Conference in 2013 in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Peter H. Niewiarowski, Ph.D.

Professional Profile: Dr. Niewiarowski’s appointments include Post-Doctoral Researcher, Savannah River Ecology Lab, University of Georgia, Athens GA 1993-1995; Professor, University of Akron (UA), Akron, OH 1995. His active research includes projects in amphibian population biology, life history evolution and physiological ecology of lizards and gecko ecology and evolution especially as it relates to adhesion and biomimetics. Since 2008, he has been developing collaboration between his lab and the lab of Ali Dhinojwala, a polymer scientist, focusing on the biology and material science of gecko adhesion. That work, which includes active collaboration between graduate students in both labs, motivated an interest in Biomimicry. From a basic research perspective, he believes that interdisciplinary collaboration can promote new insights into material science as well as biology. His research interests in gecko adhesion provided a perfect context for thinking about Biomimicry.

Dr. Niewiarowski teaches at introductory and advanced levels within the Biology and Integrated Bioscience programs. He has developed courses, which include Advanced Ecology, Herpetology, Principles of Biology, Vertebrate Zoology, Tropical Vertebrate Biology (taught in the field in the Florida Keys and Moorea, Tahiti), Biomimicry, Communicating in Integrated Bioscience, and Research in Integrated Bioscience. He firmly believes that Universities are places where research should directly inform teaching at all levels; that is one of the ways universities distinguish themselves from colleges and community colleges.

He has secured grants from the National Science Foundation to support his research as well as to develop faculty models for integrating teaching and research at the university and K- 12 levels. One of the grants he recently directed, funded K-12 teachers and graduate students in Biology to collaborate on research projects and the development of curricular supplements aligned with state standards and based on local biological research. This led to dissemination of local biological research to students as well as professional development for teachers teaching science, for which our research experiences were the first and only of their careers.

Civic Profile: In 2010 he joined the Biomimicry NEO Core group of E4S and met Doug Paige of the Cleveland Institute of Art. They participated in an Educators Workshop run by the Biomimicry Institute in 2010 and became Biomimicry Fellows, which enabled CIA and UA to become the first joint-affiliates of the Institute. At the workshop, they also hatched the idea of creating a training program for Biomimicry PhDs, and launched the first cohort of students in the fall of 2012.

Education Profile: BS Biology, Marlboro College, Marlboro Vt, 1984, and a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA, 1992

Victoria M. McMillan

McMillan is certified as a Biomimicry Specialist by Biomimicry 3.8. She works as an independent contractor in biomimicry, both as a Biologist at the Design Table (BaDT) and biomimicry educator. McMillan has worked as a biomimicry educator for nearly 5 years and has taught a semester length course in biomimicry, as well as incorporated the principles and approach in classes from the elementary to university levels. She has developed and delivered a series of recorded lectures on biomimicry, Life’s Principles and integrating biology into design for the University of Vermont’s online continuing education course in Sustainable Innovation and has lead teacher professional development workshops on biomimicry at the university and secondary levels. McMillan is also on the core team of Great Lakes Biomimicry, a regional non-profit working to make biomimicry an economic driver in Northeast Ohio.

In addition to her work with biomimicry, McMillan has a BA in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University, an MS in Resource Policy and Behavior from the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment. Her undergraduate and graduate coursework includes ecology, aquatic ecosystems, conservation biology, population biology, chemistry, resource policy and systems thinking. She was a founding member of the town of Bethlehem’s (NH) Energy Committee, and serves as an advisor to the Chewonki Semester School of Chewonki Foundation (ME).