Dr. Wes Balda is president of the Simeon Institute.
Initially launched with funding by the U.S. State Department, the Institute provided emergency management training for senior officials from the former Soviet Union and has since collaborated widely with local government, state and federal agencies, and nongovernmental organizations in crisis management projects and training. From the radioactive sarcophagus at Chernobyl and Ukraine’s first disaster manual to executive short courses around the world, we catalyze efforts that create capital in communities across sectors and cultures. For nearly twenty years the Simeon Institute has created project laboratories and experiences that energize and equip leaders and managers.The Institute sponsors and facilitates the Northwest Crisis Management Network, providing support to colleges and universities in dealing with the complex issues of academic organizations in crisis mode.
Balda also led executive management and PhD programs at the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management and served as Assistant Dean for Portland programs at the University of Oregon‘s Lundquist College of Business and Executive Director of the Oregon Business Institute as well as Executive Director of the Centre for Advancing International Management [AIM Centre] and Professor of Management at St. George’s University in Grenada, West Indies.
Previously, he was the founding Dean at the George Fox University School of Management, [now School of Business] where he developed their executive and professional MBA tracks, and created the first doctorate in management in the Northwest US. Prior to joining George Fox University. Long ago, he served as a destroyer officer in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam conflict and also piloted police helicopters in Southern California. Along the way, got a PhD from the University of Cambridge.
——————–
Joanna Stanberry is passionate about spreading useful ideas to transform organizations, communities, and the people that knit them into a whole. She is a freelance researcher in organizational behavior, innovation, and learning, and currently consults for the Max De Pree Center for Leadership.
Joanna earned an MA in Organizational Leadership from Eastern University, and a BA in Government from Claremont McKenna College. She has studied leadership at NGOs in Bolivia and Brazil, the effects of the Holocaust on memory in post-Communist Poland and the Czech Republic, and is active in the Drucker Society of New York City where she lives. In her scant free moments she works on her swing dancing and takes analogue photos with her husband Andy and daughter Junia.
——————–
Prior to serving as Director of Continuity and Emergency Services at the UC San Diego, Phillip Van Saun was an Assistant Chief in the emergency operations section of the California Governors Office of Emergency Services. He has served in the field of crisis response since 1987 when he was a Marine assigned to the White House emergency response mission and as a consultant providing emergency response training to White House support personnel. In 1990 Phillip was awarded the Presidential Service Award by President George H.W. Bush for his service to the White House.
At UC San Diego Phillip serves as a member of the campus Emergency Policy Group and co-chairs the campus pandemic and epidemic response committee and behavioral threat management team.
He is a graduate and instructor of the national interagency crisis communications program and the White House Military Office’s executive support program. He developed and serves as Faculty Director for the Leading in a Crisis program in the executive education department of the UC San Diego Rady School of Management and serves as a lecturer in the University of California Institute on Global Conflict & Cooperation Public Policy on Biological Threats program. He is a visiting professor in the MBA program at Saint George’s University in Grenada and a Adjunct Professor of communication at San Diego Christian College. He holds a BA in Liberal Studies from Mary Washington College and an MA in communication from Trinity International University.
