Founders
Patricia Klauer, DC
Patricia is a Doctor of Chiropractic; a specialist in Information Architecture; and a dedicated practitioner and teacher of the meditative arts. In fact, it was the convergence of these three areas that has led to the founding of Alpha-i, LLC.
In 1982, while juggling chiropractic school, clinical demands for licensing and working a part time job, Patricia was first introduced to formal meditation. Patricia studied for 13 years with a spiritual teacher, who emphasized meditation and spiritual practice as an aspect of high performance in the professional world. Applying these skills while working in the corporate world was her spiritual practice. In 1997, she met Gangaji, inspired by her presence, she served as a volunteer and board member of her organization. Through Gangaji’s inspiration, Patricia further experienced a deep integration into every aspect of her life.
As founder of Alpha-i, Patricia has designed practices specifically oriented towards professionals who are too busy to meditate but need it the most. She understands this culture and the daily challenges because she has personally lived this way and continues to serve her own corporate clients in the technology world. She is inspired and committed to share with others her direct experience of the power of meditation and how to integrate it into working life. The Alpha-i program empowers others to discover their own capacity to find balance and equanimity in the face of extreme stress, manage their energy and discover inspiration, insight and creativity. She guides others to tap into their own hidden inner resources through a simple and natural mind body mechanism and apply these practices on a regular basis.
In her professional career, Patricia advises visionary leaders regarding organizational and technical information architecture to achieve success in their business objectives. She is an expert in designing data warehouse architecture for large scale enterprises. In this capacity she founded Eclipse Data Systems ~ large-scale data integration and data warehousing firm; is co-author of “Building Data Warehouses for Decision Support,” published by Prentice Hall and was a founding member of Social Fusion, a non-profit organization that networks individuals and organizations to support social entrepreneurism worldwide.
Advisors
Amber Nystrom
Amber is an entrepreneur and social change architect with twenty years experience designing and leading global change projects at the intersection of business, finance and impact. She is a recognized global leader in social enterprise incubation and impact finance. She is the Founder of Social Fusion, served as a Principal in Tendris, a Dutch social venture holding company and private equity fund, and as the Director of the Social Entrepreneurship Incubator for the Women’s Technology Cluster (now Astia). She is credited with several industry first’s in creating the tools and momentum to mainstream the field of social entrepreneurism and impact finance, and is a frequent international speaker and professional facilitator in both fields. Amber has consulted to a range of investment and development groups on strategy and design for bridging philanthropy and capital markets, including to Actis, an emerging markets private equity fund with 4.8 billion under management; the World Bank; and Ashoka: Innovators for the Public. ). Amber lives between San Francisco and New Mexico, where she spends as much time outdoors as possible. Her commitment to Alpha-i stems from a growing recognition that conscious business and personal practices are essential for permanent global change.
Tom Curren
Tom Curren, MBA, has 30 years’ experience working globally with some of the largest companies in the world at the CEO and Divisional President levels. Since founding Hawthorne Consultants (formerly The Hawthorne Group) in 1990, Tom Curren has been consulting with organizations of all sizes to advise CEOs, align top teams, develop breakthrough strategies and shift organizational cultures. He has done substantive work in a variety of industries, including media, oil and gas, leisure products, health care, home building, financial services, retailing, travel and industrial products. Recently, Tom has worked with the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) to create to increase its impact in sustainability research and consulting.
Concurrently with his work in Hawthorne Consultants, Tom served as an associate partner for Blu Skye in San Francisco. With Blu Skye, Tom helped to develop and implement global sustainability strategies for a major retailer, a global lodging company and a waste management company. In the mid-1990s (also concurrent with Hawthorne work), Tom served as a Fellow in the McKinsey Change Center in New York, where he helped to develop a leading edge approach to improve the implementation of major change initiatives by giving equal weight to the decision-driven and behavior-dependent aspects of performance.
Prior to founding Hawthorne Consultants, Tom spent 10 years at Marriott Corporation. As Senior Vice President of Corporate Planning and Business Development, Tom contributed significantly to Marriott’s long-term growth: During his tenure, sales increased from $ 1 billion to $ 7.5 billion, with a compound profit growth rate of 17 percent. Tom was a member of the Finance Committee and considered to be one of the top 10 executives in the corporation. Tom created and introduced Courtyard by Marriott, which has grown to a $500+ million business and is now the most preferred brand in the moderate lodging market. He also developed a strategy to enter the time-sharing business, and Marriott Vacation Club International is currently one of the company’s fastest-growing businesses.
Earlier in his career, Tom served as an engagement manager in McKinsey & Company’s New York office, where he managed strategy and marketing studies for manufacturers and retailers. As an account manager at Compton Advertising, he managed the Cascade account for Procter & Gamble.
Tom uses his experience and skills to provide consulting support to start-up organizations that change how we see the world. In this sense he is an Evolutionary Venture Capitalist, infusing organizations — not with capital — but with the clarity and capability needed to rapidly expand their impact.
Eric Knouse
Eric has over 29 years in the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) industry with a broad range of experience including positions as President, Co-founder and Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Manager of Business Development, and Operations Project Manager. He has developed first-to-market business initiatives across a variety of industries, including telecommunications, electric, and gas utilities in North America, Europe, and Asia
In 2008, by opening himself to internal guidance, Eric found a way to access deep levels of meditation, and has created a simple and straightforward way to teach others to do the same. His practice focuses on the scientific aspects of mind-body chemistry as well as meditative technique. Although Eric has not formally explored meditation or spiritual work, he has been gifted with natural and reliable access to inner states through dedicated practice involving body posture, breathing and focused attention. Through intense study of neurobiology, brain plasticity, brain chemistry and other related bodies of work, he began to see the external scientific validation for his inner experience and state of awareness.
Vince Palladino, DC
Dr. Palladino is a chiropractor, with a background in electronics. He has always been fascinated with cutting edge technologies in electronic diagnostic equipment. That experience, along with a life long meditation practice peaked his interest in exploring emerging technologies in consciousness. Convinced it was no longer necessary to sit on a cushion for 20 years in order to enter into deeper meditative states, Vince has explored many technologies effecting consciousness and their integration with meditation. Vince’s passion for this topic supports Alpha-i’s continuing commitment to facilitate the mind-body connection by discovering and sharing simple, powerful and verifiable methods for self regulating the nervous system and reliably enter meditative brain wave states facilitating optimal health and well being on every level.
Gunther M. Weil, Ph.D.
Gunther is an organizational consultant, executive coach, educator and psychologist. For the past 35 years he has provided wise and expert guidance and support to senior executives, family businesses, and for-profit and non-profit organizations in the areas of values based leadership and organizational culture, innovation, team building, strategic planning, conflict resolution and executive wellness. He has served many institutions in both the public and private sector with clients from diverse industries including Citibank, Chase Manhattan Bank, Credit Suisse, AT&T, Compaq Computer, McCann Erickson and Interpublic Inc., Minolta, Union Carbide, British Petroleum, the Federal Aviation Agency, the Peace Corps, Young Presidents Organization, C.F. Curry Company, HCA/Health One, Boulder Heuristics, Team Training International, Naropa University, The Van Heyst Group, Aztek Networks, Veris Wealth Partners and many others.
Gunther earned his doctorate from Harvard University in 1965 and served as a Fulbright Scholar in Europe. His early professional mentors included Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, the father of Humanistic Psychology. In 1965, he was invited by Maslow to teach at Brandeis University. He subsequently received faculty and administrative appointments at Boston College and the University of Massachusetts-Boston.
Dr. Weil has also conducted personal growth seminars in leadership, creativity, emotional intelligence and wellness for executives and their organizations throughout the world. He is a 30 year practitioner of Tai Chi Chuan and an internationally recognized master teacher of Qigong – the oriental art of internal energy cultivation. He was the founding Chairman of the National Qigong Association (NQA) from 1994-1998 and continues to serve on the NQA’s National Advisory Council.
Dr. Weil is a licensed Psychologist, and is certified in the HeartMath® Inner Quality Management Program; Cultural Transformation Tools (CTT); and as a Master Values Mentor by the Minessence Group of Australia. He is also certified as a Master Trainer of Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP). In 2001 he was personally invited by Eckhart Tolle, best selling author of The Power of Now, and A New Earth to teach the Practice of Presence.
Steven M. Bruny
Steven Bruny joined Aztek Networks in June 2006. Steven was previously President/Americas for Azure Solutions, the world leader in revenue assurance and fraud software for the telecom industry. Azure was acquired by Subex Systems, Ltd., in June of 2006. Steven was the Founder and COO of Connexn Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of revenue assurance software to the telecom industry which was acquired by Azure in 2004. Prior to Connexn, he was CEO of IGS, a telecom network facilities inventory company funded by Warburg Pincus. Steven was also founder and CEO of Information + Graphics Systems, a telecom and utilities software provider that was acquired by Hitachi Software Engineering in 1993, and President of Optical Computer, a division of American Laser Corporation. Steven holds a B.S. degree in physics from Colorado State University and a M.B.A. from the University of Colorado.
