Welcome

Need a hand? Barbara Arnold, a seasoned business executive and educator, is ready to help…from strategy to nuts and bolts. Want to know more? BIO. Work samples? PORTFOLIO. Her BLOG focuses on Mentors who have given her a hand and Proteges she has guided. Leader. Educator. Communicator. That’s Barbara.

Leader

Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way. Barbara has experience in the education, energy, high tech, healthcare and nonprofit markets. She has led virtual teams around the world and rolled out initiatives globally. She also has built, managed, and dismantled teams stateside face-to-face. A spokesperson for major corporations, she has coached executives on corporate communications strategy, including media relations, employee communications, government relations, and community relations. She is a keen manager of people, resources, money, and time.

Educator

Whether teaching adults after hours at a major corporation, or military who are earning their bachelor’s degree on a fast track, or undergraduates at a public state university, Barbara inspires her students to realize their dreams. Her warm and caring manner belies the fact that she demands the best from her students and won’t accept mediocre performance ever. She also stays ahead of the curve with regards to curriculum. For example, she integrated social media and technology into her marketing, advertising, public relations, and sales curriculum; at times ahead of her students and definitely in advance of the accreditation team. Known for her interactive teaching style, students have videotaped her on their cell phones and threatened…

Communicator

Barbara has served as a spokesperson for major corporations and nonprofit organizations. She knows how to write it, pitch it, place it, and grab it for the impressions and the expressions. She can “translate” complex concepts into plain English. She has coached executives and taken them out of their comfort zones. Like the button-down white shirt exec who wore jeans for the first time for an employee conference. Transformation. Or the nuclear engineer who learned that to communicate his technology to the masses, he needed to bring it down to the level of his 12-year-old daughter. Understanding. Barbara even knows there are times the communicator keeps her mouth shut…during M&A and IPO silent periods.

April 16, 2011

Springtime in Wisconsin. Forty mph winds! Snow! High winds blew down a very tall pine tree in front of Schofield Hall at UW-Eau Claire. Missed the building. No one hurt. Time to visit Green Oasis Gardens Grand Opening, take a look at my hanging basket, and pick up some potting soil.

March 9, 2011

Welcome to my website…under construction! In the past, Cheryl Coward, who was an independent contractor at Motorola, built my website. She did it with Dreamweaver. Now that I’ve earned a certificate in web design and development, I’m building my own on Word Press. Check out Cheryl’s site: http://www.cherylcoward.com She’s cool!