Mary Ann Downey, Director of Decision Bridges, holds a BA, MED and MSW from the University of North Carolina. Through her company, Performance Dynamics, she designed and taught courses on leadership, communication and conflict resolution in private, public and nonprofit organizations. Mary Ann co-founded Start-Up Education, a nonprofit that teaches at-risk students how to start and operate small businesses and designed a curriculum for this purpose. She has served as clerk of Atlanta Friends Meeting. She designs and teaches courses on Quaker decision process to adults and students for Quaker and non-Quaker groups. For an example of Mary Ann's continuing work in the field read Building Community in the Classroom

Bill Holland, Assistant Director of Decision Bridges, holds an MA from the University of Georgia. For the past twenty years, he has served as a lobbyist, political strategist, project manager, mental health therapist and executive director in nonprofit and government settings. He served for six years as the Southeast Regional Executive Director of the American Friends Service Committee. He has served on numerous boards and chaired boards which have adopted consensus decision making in their deliberative processes. He is a member of the Atlanta Friends Meeting and is presently engaged in a research project examining the Quaker decision-making process. For an example of Bill's continuing work in the field read Who's in Charge: Power and Authority in Organization's Using Consensus Decision-Making

Vera L Stenhouse, Facilitator and Workshop Leader, holds a Masters degree in Education from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She has recently co-authored Designing a House for Diversity: A Blueprint for Personal Diversity Effectiveness, a workbook for private, public and nonprofit settings featuring exercises that help assess group dynamics, organizational culture, systems, and practices for effective personal and professional development. She also consults with the Friends School of Atlanta, a Quaker institution, conducting staff development workshops and is in the process of implementing the school's self study project. Vera has been trained by and worked with several nonprofit organizations engaged in addressing issues of conflict, resolution, team and consensus building.