The mission of Associates for Professional Development is to assist individuals and organizations continually reach for the next challenge. Our approach is based on sound business principles, common sense and proven experience.
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Associates For Professional Development is a group of highly skilled and experienced experts who work both collaboratively and independently. Each member of our team has substantial experience and a highly successful history. Our industry experience includes: healthcare, finance, sales, business leadership, education, non-profit, manufacturing and apparel.


Beverly A. Bradstock

Beverly A. Bradstock is Partner and Sr. Associate of Associates For Professional Development. She earned a certification in Business Coaching from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and she holds an MBA from Wake Forest University.

She has 20 years of business experience and has consulted in a variety of industries including: healthcare, manufacturing, government, energy and finance. Beverly has expertise in coaching all levels, from senior executive through first level manager. She provides expert and innovative program development and facilitation, and has assisted organizations managing through change since 1994. She is a trained mediator, is certified in Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), The Center for Creative Leadership’s Skillscope and Benchmarks, The Birkman and Hay-McBer’s Emotional Competence Inventory. She is co-author of the “Successful Human Resource Management Principles” seminar that is part of a curriculum that is currently being presented in four languages around the world.

Prior to founding Associates for Professional Development, Beverly was President of Career Development Services for Williams, Roberts, Young, Inc. She has also been president and principal of a computer consulting firm.

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Thomas P. Desch

Tom is a Partner and Sr. Associate in Associates For Professional Development, a coaching and organizational development practice in Winston-Salem, NC. He has conducted hundreds of leadership programs for industry and government and has coached more than 100 business leaders over the past 15 years. His coaching participants have included professionals from the staff level through regional and international corporate executives with a focus on healthcare administrators and clinicians.

Certified in the MBTI, Denison Organizational Culture Survey, Denison Leadership Survey, FiroB, and PaperPlanes, Inc., Tom has been instrumental in leading a wide variety of corporate clients through high levels of change. He has designed and facilitated simulations for leadership development, stress management, team-building and effective communication and uses these simulations to magnify the learning process.

Tom has been a senior partner of New Ideas in Training & Development for the past ten years. He has a BA from the University of Notre Dame and a MS in Counseling from the University of Dayton. In addition to his corporate work, Tom has maintained a family therapy practice in Winston-Salem for over 20 years.

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Sarah E. Putnam

Sarah E. Putnam earned her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro , her M.S. from Oklahoma State University, in Stillwater, OK and her B.A. from the University of Oklahoma in Norman, OK. She is a Human development professional with 20 years experience developing and delivering in-depth coaching, consulting and training for healthcare, industrial firms, school systems and governmental agencies.

Sarah has an extensive background in group facilitation, assessment, feedback and statistical analysis and reporting. She has authored and produced web-based educational programs and has authored white papers detailing process and cultural improvements for healthcare and industry. Sarah has coached nearly 3,000 workers through career transitions, from factory floor workers to senior level leaders.

Prior to joining Associates for Professional Development, Sarah was a senior partner at New Ideas in Training & Development for more than 10 years. She was also an instructor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where she designed, conducted and reported research for the national Board for Professional Teaching Standards that resulted in the nationwide implementation of a certification system for outstanding teachers.

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Mary Ann Furniss

Mary Ann Furniss is a gifted Personal and Business Coach, drawing on over twenty-five years of leadership in a Fortune 500 company and a decade in federal and state government organizations. She has served in a variety of executive and management roles in several functional business areas that include information systems, human resources, franchising, and planning.

Mary Ann’s career began at NASA where she was part of the spacecraft tracking team for early manned spacecraft flights. During this time she first gained her understanding of and enthusiasm for the accomplishments a tightly knit team of professionals could make in a short period of time. She has drawn upon that experience to create and maintain excellent teams that accomplished many large and complex goals over the years.

Mary Ann founded her own coaching company, Inside Track Coaching, Inc., and developed two highly successful programs: Embracing Your Retirement -- providing retirement planning help for baby boomers; and Embracing Your Career -- providing career transition coaching to those of all ages interested in exploring new career directions.

Mary Ann has a BS degree in Mathematics and an MBA in Executive Management and has recently completed class work for her degree in coaching at Coach University. She is also a member of the International Coach Federation (ICF) and the North Carolina Association of Personal and Business Coaches (NCAPBC).

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Joyce White

Joyce White is an executive and organizational coach who has been actively involved in leadership and organizational development for over 20 years. Joyce has coached executives from manufacturing, construction, power generation, packaging, aerospace, healthcare, telecommunications, financial services, document technology, and pharmaceutical industries. She has also coached in the not- for- profit, military, government, educational, and religious sectors.

She started her own company in 1989, where she specializes in coaching individuals, teams, and organizations to effectively assess their strengths and development needs, and to strategize and implement the action plans to bridge the gaps. She custom designs and delivers programs and services to enable leaders to coach and develop others, to communicate effectively, to manage conflict, to build and maintain relationships, to drive change, to achieve work/life balance, and to sell ideas, products and services with integrity.

Joyce holds both undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of New York at Albany. She also possesses a host of professional certifications in the most widely recognized assessment instruments and simulations including Leading with Emotional Intelligence and The Totally Responsible Person (TRP) Training. Joyce has been an adjunct staff member with the highly respected Center for Creative Leadership for fourteen years

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Paul Mauk

Paul Mauk brings experience both in business and in psychology to Associates For Professional Development. Prior to becoming a Licensed Family Therapist, Paul had more than 10 years of experience in sales, sales management and banking. He received his MA from Western Theological Seminary, and his BS degree in Psychology from High Point University. He is certified in the 360 Reflections Emotional Intelligence curriculum as well as MBTI.

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