2011 AMP Makes a Difference in New York City

Posted in AMP Program on April 24, 2012

Carl Urness had barely completed his duties in the IT Shared Services Department at DOT last summer when he boarded the Vamoose Bus, bound for New York City.  Since August, he has been working as a VISTA Fellow at the Center for Economic Opportunity (CEO) in the office of the Mayor.  There he is charged with developing and implementing anti-poverty programs for the city’s youth.  Only halfway though his time in NYC, he has many accomplishments under his belt.  One such accomplishment is launching the Work Progress Program, a jobs program for low-income young adults in NYC.  The program provides wage reimbursement to non-profits so they can offer to pay their participants engaged in work assignments.  In addition to overseeing a budget of more than $100,000, Carl is overhauling the data dashboard system that tracks the performance of CEO’s programs.

When asked if his AMP experience has served him in his present position, he responded enthusiastically in the affirmative.  In particular, he credits the AMP program with honing two very important skills. One is Organizational Management. The other is the ability to present to executives. “One of the key things I learned during my summer with M Squared Strategies,” says Carl, “is how to manage up. In a perfect world you can spend hours telling your manager all you know about a subject. I learned to be concise, to convey only the necessary information.  And to do that, you have to know your subject inside out.”

Welcome, Danielle O’Bannon!

Posted in Human Resources on April 24, 2012

M Squared Strategies extends a warm welcome to Danielle O’Bannon.  A Texas native, Danielle attended The Hockaday School of Dallas before traveling north to Hanover, New Hampshire to attend Dartmouth College. At Dartmouth, she obtained a Bachelor of Arts in history and a minor in education policy. She also founded Dartmouth’s first financial literacy community service organization, which offered personal finance seminars to low-income residents of New Hampshire’s Upper Valley. Following graduation, Danielle returned to Dallas to join the Litigation Consulting Support Team at Bickel & Brewer, LLC, where she developed a keen eye for detail and an aptitude for organization.

Danielle has always had a passion for public service and is extremely excited to be in Washington D.C. She looks forward to being a part of a dynamic team committed to effectively supporting government clients. In her free time, Danielle enjoys running, trying new restaurants, and spending time with friends.

When the AMPs Come Marching In

Posted in AMP Program on April 18, 2012

Springtime at M Squared Strategies means putting the finishing touches on the newly designed work rooms, finalizing contracts, and getting ready to welcome the AMPs.  This year’s group promises to be the biggest ever — at least twice as many as last year.

Recruitment for the summer-long Applied Management Professionals (AMP) Program began last October. The applicant pool, graduate students from the nation’s top universities, has grown exponentially as the reputation of our program has risen. We have also expanded our roster of partner schools, adding Harvard, Tufts, New York University, University of Virginia, and University of Maryland to a list that already included some of the top universities in the country — Johns Hopkins University, The George Washington University, University of Texas, Indiana University, and University of California San Diego, to name a few.

The application process is rigorous and includes personal interviews as well as team exercises. Alessandra Colia, Director of the AMP Program, traveled extensively, from Boston to San Diego for face-to-face meetings. For the schools she couldn’t visit personally, she conducted intense conference calls via Skype. “I’m really excited about the quality of all our applicants this year. I can already tell that this summer’s group will deliver at the highest level yet. We’ve had so many qualified applicants that the toughest part will be making the final selection.”

Throughout the recruiting process, Alessandra has had a lot of help from her colleagues at M Squared Strategies, as well as former AMPs. Special thanks go out to Jenny Weng, Justin Heineman, Emi Azumi, Laurel Wemhoff, and all of the 2011 AMP alums for helping us complete a successful recruitment season!

M Squared Strategies Celebrates Refounders Day 2012

Posted in Corporate Events on April 13, 2012

M Squared Strategies held its fifth annual Refounders Day extravaganza Thursday April 5, 2012, at the Science Club in Dupont Circle.  Current employees as well as former employees and AMPs were on hand to celebrate. It has actually been just four years since President/CEO Kendall Lott took the helm of our dynamic, ever evolving company. At that time, M Squared Strategies was not the unified, cohesive entity that it is today. But Kendall vowed in 2008 to bring the company together and build true team spirit. Looking around at the animated conversation and bonhomie of this year’s party (which was organized by Alessandra Colia), it was clear that he has succeeded.

AMPs Get Published on ProPath

Posted in AMP Program / Department of Veterans Affairs on April 05, 2012

The hard work of M Squared Strategies AMPs paid off for the Department of Veterans Affairs. An onboarding process map they developed last summer for Virtual Lifetime Electronic Records (VLER), one of 16 major initiatives at VA, was used in VA’s HR Lockdown last November. It has since become official department-wide policy and was recently published on ProPath, where VA stores all its compliance and procedures documents.

Under the guidance of team lead Jenny Weng, AMPs Rachel Brody and Alexandra Reames produced the map, which defines the contractor onboarding process. Our clients, the VLER Director and COTR/Compliance Manager, were impressed with the excellent quality of the AMPs’ work, not to mention the timeliness of the delivery. At the end of the summer, the AMPs were invited to attend a meeting of the Onboarding Working Group, where they provided advice on ways to improve the VA’s contractor onboarding process.

M Squared Strategies Entertains Job Candidates for Facilitation Service Line

Posted in Facilitation / Human Resources on April 03, 2012

They came from all over the country – California, Florida, Texas, and places in between – for an informative but fun Happy Hour hosted by M Squared Strategies. More than a dozen candidates, all carefully pre-screened by our Human Resources department, were here to meet with members of the FSL team. There were undergrads as well as graduate students, liberal arts majors, former Peace Corps volunteers, Governance and Policy experts, all eager to learn more about M Squared Strategies and what they can bring to our Facilitation Service Line and the company.

The event, which was organized by Alessandra Colia and Jenny Weng of M Squared Strategies, took place in the large conference room at M Squared Strategies HQ. Andrew MacDonald, director of HR, was impressed with the caliber of candidates as well as the energy and enthusiasm exhibited by the M Squared team. “This is the kind of event we can replicate for other hiring efforts and service lines in the future.”

Employees Rack Up More Professional Certifications

Posted in Facilitation / Professional Development on March 30, 2012

Workplace Conflict Management and DiSC Assessment were at the top of M Squared Strategies’ March Spring Training agenda.

At the Workplace Mediation Training, offered by the Mediation Training Institute, Wes Cronkite, Alessandra Colia, and Erin Bankey studied a variety of techniques drawn from legal and counseling methodologies.  The M Squared group was a noted force in the class, made up mostly of government mediators, as they brought their client delivery and professional backgrounds to bear in role playing and theoretical discussions. At the end of the two-day session, they were certified as Professionals in Managing Workplace Conflict.

The primary focus at the Everything DiSC (Dominance, influencing, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness) Trainers workshop in Minneapolis was personality assessment. Along with human resources professionals, independent consultants, and executive coaches, Erin Bankey and Nic Turrentine were there to learn the fine points of DiSC assessment, and the art of training others to use the tool. It’s all about understanding your own personality (each attendee received a series of detailed personality assessments related to workplace, management, and leadership styles) as well as the work styles of your colleagues. The more you understand, the better you can listen, and the more effectively you can respond. Congratulations to Erin and Nic for becoming certified DiSC Trainers.

Second Annual Partners and Pairings Event a Success

Posted in Business Development on March 19, 2012

The weather was warm, the mood was convivial, and feedback from the second annual Partners and Pairings reception was positively effusive.

Great idea…great venue…wonderful turnout.  D.M. –  CenturyLink

I thoroughly enjoyed the evening and making many new contacts as well as seeing old friends.  A first class event!  B.M. – DAI Solutions

It was a wonderful event and I found it to be very helpful in the networking process.  S.T. – Radius

On March 1st, M Squared Strategies hosted representatives of 19 companies from around the Beltway to an evening of networking and wine tasting. The event, organized by Selena Hunn of M Squared Strategies, took place at the Lorien Hotel and Spa in Old Town, Alexandria. Renowned DC chef Robert Weidmaier provided the catering. After a brief wine-pairing presentation, the guests indulged in scrumptious hors d’oeuvres while mingling in the elegant living room and library, and around the fire pit on the terrace.

The general consensus was that M Squared Strategies’ annual gathering proved once again to be a great way for consultants to forge new business relationships and to further develop existing ones.

Welcome, Shanthi Philips!

Posted in Human Resources on March 12, 2012

Shanthi Philips started on Thursday and will be joining Marcy and Nic supporting the ISG ORMS effort with the Forest Service at the USDA, completing a trifecta of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers supporting a client who happens to be a RPCV.  Shanthi grew up in St. Louis, Missouri and attended college at the University of Richmond. She graduated with a BA in mathematics and economics, and started working at Mercer as an actuarial analyst.  Over the next four years, her actuarial consulting career moved her from Richmond to Chicago, and from Mercer to Hewitt.  She enjoyed working with large data sets to calculate her clients’ pension risk, and meeting with them to plan for their employees’ future.  She also passed five actuarial exams to attain her Associate of the Society of Actuaries.  In 2009, Shanthi decided that she wanted to look for something more fulfilling in her work, and joined the Peace Corps.  For two years, she lived and worked in Lesotho, a small country landlocked by South Africa that has the 3rd highest rate of HIV/AIDS in the world.  Shanthi taught mathematics to high school students and worked to mitigate the effects of HIV/AIDS in the country through education and empowerment. Shanthi just returned from her Peace Corps service at the end of 2011 and moved to Washington DC last month. In her spare time, she enjoys running and exploring the city.  Welcome Shanthi!

Welcome, Marcy Shrader-Lauinger!

Posted in Human Resources on March 12, 2012

Marcy Shrader-Lauinger grew up in Montana and caught the travel bug early on in life. She started as an exchange student in New Zealand during high school and has now lived in over five countries and on both coasts of the United States. She attended Colby College in Maine, graduating in 2008 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Studies and Development. While in university, Marcy dedicated time to international public health research in Ecuador and political development studies in Kampala, Uganda. She recently returned from serving three years in the Peace Corps, where she worked in Paraguay and Colombia on beekeeping, agriculture, education and economic development programs. In the Peace Corps, she was responsible for small economic development activities from planning and material creation to facilitation and program evaluation. Marcy is excited to join the M Squared Strategies team and hopes to contribute to more effective and responsible government policy. Marcy will be joining Nic and Brenda Maynor over at Brenda’s new home at ISG working on the ORMS support project within the Forest Service at the USDA. In her spare time, Marcy is trying to catch up on the technology and culture of the past three years in addition to running and practicing Bikram Yoga.

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