Chapter 1:
The Birch Group LLC was established in 1997 as a consulting organization specializing in Strategic and Project Planning. Due to our customer demands, we decided to expand our offerings and added organization effectiveness and talent/leadership development, as well as corporate training programs to our product and service mix. Our talent leadership expansion included teamwork and conflict resolution. Before we add any new products and/or services, we become fully trained through formal training and seminars to ensure that each and every client receives our very best at each consulting engagement. To facilitate the learning process and to help our clients reach their full potential, we developed a partnership with Target Training International, a world leader in developing assessment tools, and began to slowly introduce these tools, beginning with DISC Behavior and Workplace Motivator assessments. These tools are cost effective, thoroughly validated and designed to meet the needs of employers and employees in small, medium and large corporations , non-profits and education. The tools, integrated with our training programs ensure that people are able to immediately use their training experiences to become more engaged and productive in their positions.
Our client list includes insurance companies, banks, high-tech manufacturing, municipalities, colleges and universities, service organizations, software development companies, medical practices and the armed services.
Chapter 2:
After being trained by Barry Foster, Master Business Coach, for over a year, we introduced Business Success Coaching to our mix to help further develop our clients' effectiveness and their level of engagement. To date, we have coached people in most industries with great success, and we continually add new tools to enhance the coaching process so that each coaching client comes away from the experience with a new set of tools that help them clearly understand themselves and their talents, appreciate and communicate better with others, and to develop a comprehensive plan to help them excel to new levels.
As our work has led us to continue to increase our organizational focus towards organizational talent development, we have always had a strong commitment to ensure that the "Right People are in the Right Jobs." Therefore, in addition to leadership development we introduced job benchmarking, talent selection and employee retention to our mix. The Trimetrix© package, based on Robert Hartmann's mathematical model of Axiology (originally used in a clinical setting, and now adapted to business), has been instrumental in helping us match the right talent to the right jobs.
Chapter 3:
Our commitment to the community extends to working within Connecticut universities, community colleges and high schools to help overcome barriers to attracting some of the most innovative and creative students to pursue studies and careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), areas critical to the future economic well being of Connecticut and our nation.
We have developed and direct three nationally recognized educational programs, funded by the National Science Foundation, The Connecticut College of Technology and its Regional Center for Next Generation Manufacturing as well as Connecticut Business and Industry Association. These programs are:
The Engineering Challenge for the 21st Century Program - designed to teach inner-city and underrepresented high school students those professional and life skills that they will need to survive, blended with technical writing and hands-on, team-based engineering/technology applications to excite them into pursuing STEM careers. We also work with these students to adapt their behaviors and to believe in themselves so that they can achieve success that they never imagined. Working with these young people has been an eye opener and a positive experience for all of our team. We constantly hear from students who had no college aspirations who have now graduated and successfully entered the professional workforce. Some have even received their PhDs and are now teaching.
The Life and Sustainable Living Program - specifically designed to help develop and retain a vibrant workforce for Connecticut's high tech companies. Beginning in the first week of January, university and community college engineering and technology students are brought together for a two-week training program during their winter intersession. They learn about human behaviors using the DISC behavioral model, research techniques, leadership, managing and participating on highly effective teams, project planning and management, dealing with difficult people, networking, resume writing and Solidworks training. During the first week of the intersession, project sponsors form NASA, Homeland Security, Ct Children's Hospital, large manufacturing companies, and small start-ups, present real world problems regarding life support and sustainable living that need to be addressed. The students conceptualize, design, research and build prototypes to help improve society. Even through the economic downturn, our student participants have been readily hired up by employers.
The Engineering Challenge Summer Teachers Workshops - collaboration between The Birch Group LLC, The Connecticut College of Technology and The US Coast Guard Academy. Teachers from throughout the United States and Territories come to the Coast Guard Academy to learn the techniques developed in both the Engineering Challenge and Life Support Programs so that they can introduce their experiences into their classrooms to get students excited about STEM.
Chapter 4:
With Paul Mathews joining our staff in 2011, we have included Career Coaching, Outplacement Services and Personal Branding in our service mix to ensure that we are able to assist both employers and employees in matching the "right candidates in the right jobs." Paul has many years of experience helping people remarket/rebrand themselves and find positions suitable to their talents and salary ranges, even during the severe economic downturn. We utilize a very unique and pragmatic marketing and branding methodology to successfully target companies and businesses experiencing problems, challenges and/or growth. Working with a group of thought leaders in the career management, transition, executive coaching and outplacement industries, we quickly began to gain a strong reputation for helping executives and top talent seeking transition. Our coaches have already helped over 1,000 individuals transition.