Meet the Team
Steve Trautman
Known for his energetic, no-nonsense style, Steve brings a unique blend of humor, straight talk, and hard-earned wisdom to every engagement. Steve Trautman is a leading authority on talent risk management and knowledge transfer. He has built a reputation for helping Fortune 500 companies tackle one of their most overlooked business risks: talent.
Steve quite literally wrote the book on knowledge transfer (Teach What You Know) and followed it with his definitive work on talent risk (Do You Have WHO It Takes?). His practical, data-driven methodology has been implemented by executives, engineers, and highly specialized experts across industries, geographies, and job levels, from the front line to the boardroom.
Steve’s expertise is rooted in real-world experience. Early in his career at Microsoft, he led a rapidly scaling technical team and saw firsthand how a lack of knowledge transfer could slow progress and increase risk. He founded an internal department to address these gaps, pioneering systems that still influence his work today. After leaving Microsoft to start his own consulting firm, he was recruited by Expedia to run its online advertising unit, a $20 million business, giving him a front-row seat to the challenges of scaling operations while managing talent. Read More…
Principal and Founder
Teresa Canady
COO & Director of Consulting
Supporting teams as they learn and use the Steve Trautman Co. talent risk management framework allows Teresa Canady to combine her passion for coaching with a pragmatic solution that ensures results. Teresa brings a global focus and over 35 years of diverse experience in knowledge transfer, content publishing, software design and development, and technology education to her role as COO and Director of the Consulting team. The last 30 years of her experience has been in leading teams and global organizations in designing, developing, and implementing technical training solutions, first as a leader at Microsoft and then as a consultant. Teresa has played various roles in financial institutions, taught mathematics to elementary, secondary, and college students, and enjoyed a career in software, designing and building consumer-focused computer-based tutorials, applications, and tools to facilitate software localization. She has lived and worked in India as well as the US, and has incubated new business approaches to dramatically extend the reach of technology learning products in Africa, Asia, and South America.
Kim Tsuchida
CIO & Consultant
Kim joined Steve Trautman Co. after working in the IT field for 20 years. She started her career in IT consulting as a developer, working with Fortune 500 companies in the financial services, automotive, and insurance industries. She then spent 15 years working at Warner Bros. as a Product/Program Manager in the rapidly evolving digital content distribution space where she won a Technical Emmy award for her team’s groundbreaking work automating digital content delivery to global publishers. She lives in California and enjoys spending time with her two daughters, playing basketball, and running Ragnar races.
Sonja Gustafson
Co-Owner
Sonja is a marketing veteran of over 25 years dating back to the “go-go” days at Microsoft. She was deeply involved in creating and opening up the new markets of multimedia software, including Microsoft Encarta, Microsoft Bookshelf, and Multimedia Beethoven. She then moved on to help bring the first version of the Microsoft’s corporate intranet, MSWeb, and managed a team of crack researchers who did then what Google does now: find answers. Then there were the “other go-go” days of mommyhood where new dreams were inspired and journeys launched within two fabulous children. In 2011 Sonja joined The Steve Trautman Co. as Marketing Director, and continues her drive in helping businesses manage talent risk so that their workforce is ready to roll.
Denise Glancy
Denise Glancy is a 35-year veteran of the IT industry where she was responsible for implementing and motivating people through many a change initiative at The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. Her technical work experience started in the mainframe era and then led Denise into the Project Management discipline where she helped usher-in the client-server Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) period of People, Processes and Tools. The People aspect then became the focus for the last third of Denise’s career, as Denise developed a multi-year IT Leadership Development Program to recruit, groom and retain top IT talent. Denise championed the creation of the IT Business Analysis Center of Excellence, a discipline that ‘bridged the gap’ between the business community and IT. And finally, she is credited for introducing the Steve Trautman Methodology to Goodyear’s IT organization; a framework that was loved by all who experienced it!
Denise and her husband Dave enjoy doing just about anything outdoors and the great South Carolina weather helps to accommodate that. They have a son, Zack, daughter-in-law, Jaimie, and 2 wonderful granddaughters: Isla & Finley, who never run out of playful energy!
Account Manager
Andrea Carron
Business Development Manager
Andrea has built her career at the intersection of business development, new market expansion, and fundraising across Fortune 500 companies, NGOs, and startups. She is passionate about building strategies for growth and co-creating impactful projects with partners, consistently leveraging collaboration to achieve meaningful results.
After earning a B.S. from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business and an MBA from Instituto de Empresa in Madrid, Andrea has worked across the U.S., Spain, and Guatemala, bringing a global perspective and fluency in English and Spanish to her work. She enjoys spending time outdoors hiking, practicing yoga, and traveling.
Laura Benoit
Laura joined the STC team after using its methodology to lead a dual leadership transition at her former organization. She has built a career at the intersection of social impact and business, helping teams scale by leveraging talent and improving efficiency. Her human-centered design approach has consistently enabled teams to grow and reach ambitious goals.
Since earning her Master’s in Public Administration in 2015, Laura has lived in Latin America and worked across sectors including agriculture, tech, ecommerce, and education in roles spanning program management, operations, and marketing. In her first year with STC, she localized the methodology into Spanish and supported five nonprofit organizations in Guatemala to scale their teams, strengthen management practices, and onboard new staff.
Marketing Manager & Consultant
Traci Hudson
Traci Hudson is a senior information technology executive with extensive international business experience building and managing culturally diverse teams, driving business alignment and cost reductions in challenging business, organizational and multi-cultural environments. She has vast experience managing / mitigating talent risk and accelerating knowledge transfer. Ms. Hudson is an organizational and idea leader garnering respect and trust from staff, management, customers, vendors, and the executive suite.
Traci spent 23 years working for U. S. Steel where she worked in IT (Applications, Infrastructure, Process Control Systems) but at times also had responsibility for various transaction-based service areas such as Payroll, A/P, A/R Claims Processing and Printing & Duplicating. During her time with USS she also spent five years living and working in Kosice, Slovakia where she was VP of IT and Business Services for their European Operations.
Consultant
Bridget Jennings
Consultant
Bridget Jennings comes to The Steve Trautman Co. after many diverse experiences in wide-ranging industries. Bridget has brought her passion, intelligence and business savvy to the project management of museum exhibitions, live events, music, television production, and software development. While at Microsoft Bridget worked as Lead Program Manager on education and entertainment software such as Cinemania, Music Central and Sidewalk, and spent nearly a decade producing and managing popular music concert venues. She has some fantastic stories that she’ll share with you one of these days. While working as a television producer in Minneapolis, she won 2 Emmy awards for her work on a weekly arts magazine show, and recently worked as Senior Project Manager for EMP Museum in Seattle, creating high impact, technically innovative, interactive exhibits about Music, Science Fiction and Popular Culture. She has also worked as Company Manager for the juggling troupe, The Flying Karamazov Brothers, traveling the world, managing logistics, handling finances and bringing silliness to the planet.
Karen Martínez
With over 10 years of banking and sales experience, Karen is passionate about disruptive thinking and reaching goals. She has worked with large teams all across Guatemala and Spain to help banks and different companies form business alliances. She has experience working with multidisciplinary segments to accomplish sales goals and develop innovative products. Before coming to the Steve Trautman Company she was the marketing and expansion manager for a family company based in Guatemala that focuses on livestock production; import and distribution of agricultural supplies. She loves spending time with her two sons and running marathons , but lately she mostly runs after them.
Consultant
Todd Hudson
Consultant
With more than 20 years of engineering and plant management experience at European, Chinese and US-owned companies in a variety of industries, Todd has seen just about everything the business world can throw at a person—from frenetic growth and high volume, to cutting out fat, cutting into muscle while avoiding cutting one’s own throat. Todd is a former client of the Steve Trautman Company who implemented the knowledge transfer solution in his own factory. He is also a long-time lean practitioner and started the Maverick Institute to pioneer the application of lean principles to training and learning. Throughout his career, he’s seen that effective knowledge transfer and sharing of expertise are critical elements to success. Todd works with Fortune 100 giants as well as fast and furious startups and mid-sized companies around the world, and speaks regularly to companies and industry associations about using lean to improve training.
Stacey Dickinson
Stacey Dickinson has been in the training and consulting industry for over 35 years. Her professional career began at a technology company in a management and marketing support role specializing in the legal market. In 1989 she began working for Microsoft teaching customers to administer, design and implement databases on Microsoft SQL Server version 1.0. In 1992 she started working for Steve Trautman as a training manager supporting all Program Managers and Marketers in the Product Groups. In 1994, she left Microsoft to start her own training and management consulting business, Solutions View, Inc. The company focuses on teaching effective collaboration and critical thinking as well as the STC 4-step Methodology Gets You To “Done” which she’s been consulting and teaching since 1997. Stacey is an avid hiker. In 2019 she completed her goal of backpacking the entirety of the magnificent Pacific Crest Trail in her own backyard of Washington state. Stacey is also the founder of PlayTheDay.shop which creates eco-friendly gifts that help people find joy, strength, and beauty in everyday moments—even the hardest ones.
Consultant
Sherryl Christie
Consultant
Sherryl is a deeply-skilled executive coach and facilitator of learning and growth experiences for executives and their teams.
The collaborations with Steve Trautman started over 30 years ago, when she worked briefly with the leadership team of a software development start-up, of which he was a member. Given the gaps and needs she saw in pretty much all her client companies, Sherryl was struck by Steve's relentless focus on real results and his unique tools that enabled subject matter experts to transfer their vast knowledge to others in record time...with long-lasting, positive impact.
She encouraged Steve to start his own company, and has worked with him and STC (Steve Trautman Company), in varying roles, since that time. Being part of the evolution from knowledge transfer training to talent risk solutions. From a focus primarily on transferring legacy knowledge from a retiring workforce to practical integrations of company mergers and new technologies. Sherryl has helped create and refine curriculum (including the now-retired Practical Leader Management Series and a certification program for internal facilitators, and process owners), facilitate workshops, and guide sales and implementation conversations with executives and training/development professionals.
As the Co-founder and Principal of Best Practice, Inc, Sherryl partners with Founders and senior leaders of closely-held, purpose-driven companies to grow their businesses, unleash and focus the power of their teams, and still live a life they love.
Hannah Kirshenbaum
Hannah has worked in business administration and accounting for over 15 years in a variety of industries including IT services, medical research, and home building. Before coming to the Steve Trautman Company, she ran a women’s health research center wearing many hats related to operations, accounting, in-house IT support, and copy machine whisperer. Hannah joined the STC team in 2013 and continues to enjoy the company culture and having fun while working. She also appreciates having fun spending time outdoors exploring trails with her husband and dog in and around the diverse Puget Sound region.
Business Manager