TESTIMONIALS
Working with Tara
"Tara’s coaching style is truly transformative. We set clear objectives for our time together and made measurable progress in areas of leadership, presence, and work-life balance. Her work helped me grow in confidence, create the space for proactive strategic focus, and gave me new ways of thinking that have changed me for the better."
Meghan Hertel, Deputy Secretary for Biodiversity and Habitat, CNRA
“Tara listens to her clients, hones in on the key spoken and unspoken issues, and offers an array of practical, easily implemented tools to address the root causes. Because of my work with Tara, I have experienced a profound shift in how I manage my time, how I support my team, and the way I feel about and approach challenges.”
Pete Skala, Energy Division Director, CPUC
"Tara’s honest feedback and practical, action-oriented style helped me make immediate progress on evolving my approach to solving problems more centered on my values— lessons I have taken even outside of the workplace. My time with Tara was a life-changing gift.”
Courtney Prideaux Smith, Principal Deputy Executive Officer, CARB
"After a few sessions with Tara, I feel more confident in myself as a leader because she identified strengths that I wasn’t aware I had, recognized ways I'd been holding myself back, and provided concrete strategies to continuously increase my self-awareness to maximize my impact."
Melanie Wallace, Deputy Director, CA Conservation Corps
“Tara’s adaptability to work with different people and personalities and her breadth of knowledge, experience, feedback provided and deliverables were outstanding and unparalleled as evident from comments provided by the team and my own experience. It was a truly life changing experience and has made me a better public servant.”
Amrith Gunasekara, Former Executive Science Advisor, CDFA
“Tara’s guidance has been truly transformational, strengthening my leadership by helping me become more a present, responsive, and balanced person. She is insightful, strategic, constructive and always honest. It’s not an exaggeration to say that my career and life are now different, and much improved, thanks to Tara.”
Wade Crowfoot, Secretary, CA Natural Resources Agency
1:1 Coaching
“Tara’s coaching was truly a life changing experience for me. The insights she offered have been lasting and help me become the best version of myself. She is an informed advisor and her breadth of knowledge, fantastic listening skills, and objective approach always left me excited for our next session together.”
Natalie Krout, ISD Director, CDFA
"Tara’s coaching has been instrumental in assisting my transition to executive management. She provided numerous tailored and practical insights and recommendations that covered a wide range of every day challenges related to personnel management, strategic planning, and building a strong culture.”
Brian Brown, Chief Financial Officer, DTSC
"Coaching assisted me in identifying and resolving challenges that exist from an organizational level as well as from an interpersonal level. I have encouraged our entire Executive Team to participate because I believe that we and the organization can benefit from working with Tara."
Edna Murphy, Deputy Executive Officer, CARB
“My coaching work with Tara over the course of a year was transformative for me and my executive team. Tara created the environment that allowed us to lean into uncomfortable issues and territory, but with scaffolding and boundaries that promoted a safe, honest, and real space within which to work.”
Matt St. John, Former Executive Officer, North Coast RWQCB
"Tara’s coaching has been truly transformative to me as a leader. She helped me create bandwidth to focus on my own priorities in my work. Tara gave me the tools to not only address the challenges I was having, but also to feel like I have a strong foundation to navigate challenges that will come.”
Laurel Firestone, Board Member, CA SWRCB
"The modern workplace is chaotic and demanding. Tara helped me reset with concrete steps to bring my authentic self to work and maximize my positive impact through leadership. She doesn’t shy away from hard truths and honest feedback and challenges you to be the best version of your professional self. I am so grateful to have worked with her!”
Tony Andersen, Deputy Secretary for Communications, CNRA
Group Training
"We offered Tara’s training to the entire team and everyone gave it high praise. Whether they were new to management or had long careers in state government like myself, they walked away with new skills and approaches to dealing with challenges.”
Lauren Zeise, Executive Director, OEHHA
“Tara challenged my team to explore new perspectives and approaches that we could then immediately put into practice. This training catalyzed a paradigm shift in how I will approach leadership development in the future, both for myself and for my teams.”
Doug Ito, State Oil and Gas Supervisor, GalGEM
“Tara’s exceptional guidance and teaching style make even the most complex leadership concepts easy to understand and put into practice. I am immensely thankful for the knowledge and skills I've gained, which I'm already implementing.”
Lawson Adams, Manager, CARB
“The training Tara facilitated didn’t just help address the immediate issues of shifting to remote work before us; it allowed the division to step back and better structure our communication. The positive outcomes are already apparent across the leadership team.”
Dan Bout, Division Director, CPUC
“Tara has helped me and my team grow tremendously through multiple training programs. She is exceptionally talented in working with people, listens carefully to identify needs, and thoughtfully puts together customized workshops to help individuals and teams develop new perspectives and truly grow.”
Barzin Moradi, Branch Chief, CDFA
"I can't say enough great things about Tara’s training style, materials, and knowledge of the latest concepts and best practices. Was a huge amount of knowledge transfer to myself and my other team members. Thank you so much Tara."
Eric Jenkins, Chief, FI$Cal