The CBD team can help you achieve your goals.
Cooperative By Design comprises a collaborative team of Eight colleagues located in five states (Arizona, Indiana, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia, including the Washington D.C. area). Together we bring over a century of experience of working with communities, congregations and organizations to achieve greater health and effectiveness. Below you’ll see a bio for each of us describing our respective areas of expertise. Please contact any one of us for more information about our services and availability.
Barbara Robbins
Barbara Robbins is a consultant with Cooperative by Design. Her experience, training and passion focuses on leadership development, teambuilding, organizational change management and conflict transformation. She enjoys helping organizations discover and tap into unused potential in their staff, taking them to a new level of understanding, motivation and performance.
Barbara utilizes a collaborative process in her consulting practice that yields transformative outcomes for her clients. Her processes are especially suited for conflict transformation and change management. Times of conflict in an organization’s life present unique opportunities for growth and positive change. She has many years of experience in working with non-profit organizations, corporations, and congregations. She has written leadership development and teambuilding curriculum highlighting the important components of personality and how it connects to performance. She is founder of a unique experiential learning program, which involves working with horses, called HALT® (Horse Assisted Learning and Therapy) which many organizations and individuals have benefited from.
In 2020 Barbara founded The HALT Foundation, a nonprofit that envisions being a leading advocate of Equine Assisted Services throughout VA and beyond. Their mission is to resource and advance the life-giving field of equine-assisted psychotherapy and learning.
Among her educational credentials is a MA in Conflict Transformation and Organizational leadership from one of the leading peacebuilding programs in the country, the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding of Eastern Mennonite University. She holds a bachelor’s degree in social work from Baylor University and a Master of Divinity with an emphasis in Pastoral Counseling from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
In addition to her consulting work, Barbara and her husband of 38 years, Alan, own and operate a horse boarding business in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. They have three sons, Michael (and his wife Jen), Brian (and his wife Emily) and Matthew (and his wife Nikki). They have two grandsons, Thomas and Will, and a third on the way. Her hobbies include anything related to being outdoors including trail riding, yard work, and water activities.
David Brubaker
Dayton, VirginiaDavid Brubaker is Director of the Organizational and Leadership Studies Program and Associate Professor of Organizational Studies in the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University. He has more than 30 years of experience in workplace mediation and training and in organizational and congregational consulting. David has consulted and trained with organizations throughout the U.S. and in a dozen international settings including Northern Ireland, Mozambique, Angola, Nepal, Myanmar, Egypt and Jordan. He is the author of numerous articles on conflict transformation and of Promise and Peril: Understanding and Managing Change and Conflict in Congregations (published by The Alban Institute) and co-author of The Little Book of Healthy Organizations (Good Books).
David earned a B.S. in Business Administration from Messiah College, an MBA from Eastern University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Arizona specializing in religion and organizations.
Dr. Rachel Goldberg
Greencastle, IndianaDr. Goldberg has been mediating for over 25 years, and her work and training background include: individual, organizational and multi-party interventions; and work around controversial issues like pro-life/pro-choice activism, police accountability, and Native American land claim conflict. Her research includes work on how worldview and values affect practice, best practices in environmental and inter-cultural conflict resolution, and her new framework developed with colleague Dr. Blancke, Multidimensional Conflict Resolution, which integrates emotional, somatic, and spiritual intelligence with classic conflict resolution practice.
During her tenure in the field she jointly founded two mediation centers, and has coordinated three. She was also senior staff for the National Association for Mediation in Education (NAME, now CRENET/ACR) and is a trainer for the Alternatives to Violence Project in maximum-security correctional facilities, and with other audiences. She is also certified to do NY State Lemon Law Arbitration and Matrimonial Fee Dispute Arbitration.
She is an Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at DePauw University, in Greencastle, IN, and head of the Restorative Justice Mediation program there.
Gretchen Reinhardt
Gretchen’s nearly 30 years of experience in the field give her faith in the human spirit and its ability to respond to adversity and conflict with creativity. Her diverse life experiences lead her to notice how different decision-making processes address social, political, cognitive, and physical boundaries that separate and join us. As a life-long Quaker, she has a special interest in corporate spiritual discernment processes, and how they can appropriately be integrated with, or informed by, scientific discernment processes as well as public processes. Her current leading is to raise awareness of process tools that can be used to deepen and strengthen climate conversations and collaborative action. Gretchen is comfortable working with all ages, and brings Spanish language skills to her work.
She holds a MS from George Mason University‘s Institute for Conflict Analysis & Resolution, a B.A. in Politics from the University of California at Santa Cruz (Honors in the Major), and studied at Drew University’s United Nations Semester.
James Isaacs
James Isaacs has over 15 years of experience in congregational leadership as an Episcopal priest. He joined Cooperative by Design after completing his Master’s degree at Eastern Mennonite University in Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding. James enjoys consulting with congregations and coaching leaders to help them more fully live into their mission of representing God’s love in the world. He is also available to lead trainings and workshops on topics such as planning for change, engaging conflict in healthier ways, and what it means to be faithful to God in the midst of conflict.
James received a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and a M.Div. degree from Virginia Theological Seminary and serves as the Assistant Rector at St. James Episcopal Church in Potomac, Maryland.
Jane Ellen Reid
Dayton, VirginiaJane Ellen has nearly two decades of practice experience in conflict analysis and resolution. She has worked as University Ombudsman, first in Arizona and later Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg VA. “I love working at the micro and macro levels within organizations, including strategic planning, maintaining consistency between stated values and goals, role clarity, and healthy communication.”
Jane Ellen’s passions lie in individual and executive conflict coaching, organizational health and productivity, and resiliency in interpersonal relations. Her work includes organizational strategic planning, seminars on engaging difficult conversations in the workplace, mediation, restorative circles, and facilitation. In addition to consulting, Jane Ellen teaches an undergrad course in Conflict Transformation and Mediation at Eastern Mennonite University.
Among her educational credentials is Ph.D. coursework completed at NOVA Southeastern University in the Department of Conflict Analysis and Resolution (DCAR); MEd in Educational Psychology and Human Development from Northern Arizona University; BA in History from the University of Vermont.
Roxy Allen Kioko
Harrisonburg, VirginiaRoxann Allen Kioko (Roxy) teaches courses on management and research methods at the Department of Business & Economics, the Organizational Leadership Studies graduate program, and the Center for Justice & Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University. Roxy has worked in research, operations, management, training, and consulting roles in various contexts in the U.S. and abroad, including positions at Mennonite Central Committee, the Great Place to Work Institute, Humentum, the New Venture Fund, and Cooperative by Design. Her consulting clients range from small religious congregations to cross-sector community coalitions, and she enjoys helping them further their missions through strategic planning and change management. She holds a PhD in Strategic Leadership with a focus on Nonprofit and Community Leadership from James Madison University.
Sharon Kniss
Sharon is committed to building healthy and resilient communities of action and healing. Creatively using traditional processes of dialogue, mediation, and strategic planning, Sharon works to facilitate opportunities for healthier systems and relationships promoting strategic growth and effectively transforming conflict.
Since 2006, Sharon has worked with organizations, leaders, and faith communities in situations of transition and conflict. In addition to offering tailored process design and facilitation, Sharon also offers training for leaders and organizations in healthy group processes including dialogue, mediation, and facilitation.
With over a decade of experience in peacebuilding, Sharon brings a justice and anti-oppression lens to her work, whether it is in international contexts (Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia) or with local communities in the U.S.
Sharon’s educational background includes a MA in International Peace Studies (Kroc Institute; University of Notre Dame) and BA in Justice, Peace, and Conflict Studies (Eastern Mennonite University). She has additionally received training in restorative justice processes, community development, and non-profit management. Sharon resides in the Washington D.C. area.