Workshop Delivery Staff

Joseph E. Shackford

Joe has a B.S. in aeronautical engineering from Purdue University and an M.S. in engineering management from Northeastern. He was the first engineer in GE-Aircraft Engines to complete GE's Financial Management Program course of studies.

Joe began his professional career with Sikorsky Helicopter as a flight test engineer. After three years, he moved to GE-Aircraft Engines. Twenty-five years' experience as a functional manager in worldwide commercial sales and military aviation operations led to his being named the first National Executive - India – for all GE product lines. He managed all of GE's business development operations for India, living in New Delhi from 1986 to 1989.

During this time, he managed business-to-business and business-to-government joint venture, co-production and technology transfer activities involving aircraft and marine engines, power generation electrical energy production, medical imaging equipment, factory automation, plastics, and lighting. Some opportunities involved multi-country, multi-company agreements.

Upon return to the U.S. in 1989, he managed GE-Aircraft Engine's Military Product Support Operation in Lynn, Massachusetts, through the Desert Shield activities and Desert Storm preparation. He encouraged the implementation of customer-centered process management throughout his operation, along with intensive continuous improvement activities.

In January 1991, he joined the Mattford Group as senior partner. A manager who always built his own organizations' performance through relevant skills training, process consultation, and mentoring/modeling, he now shares his worldwide business experience with TMG clients.

Joe kicks back by flying Cessnas, playing golf, dancing, and traveling the world with Kaye, as well as sharing time with four grown kids, six grandkids, one cat named T-II, and two American Eskimo dogs named Jetti Bear and Little Bear.


Kaye M. Shackford

Kaye attended Bennington College and graduated with an A.B. in English Education from the University of North Carolina. Her Masters in Adult Education was with Malcolm Knowles at Boston University. Her Diploma in Advanced Studies in Gestalt Psychology is from the New England Gestalt Institute.

Before joining GE, she worked for a National Laboratory for Higher Education in North Carolina. As associate director for an experimental urban ministry, she produced an issues-oriented TV series for Channel 38 in Durham, North Carolina.

During 12 years at GE-Aircraft Engines, she served as personnel manager for the sourcing and manufacturing technology organizations and as manager of marketplace education and professional development. She designed the precursor of the Negotiating Solutions workshop in 1978 and has taught iterations of the program domestically since then and internationally since 1983. She completely redesigned the workshop in 1990 to help professionals steeped in and good at positional negotiation discover at a deep value and conceptual level the far superior results possible through interest-based negotiation.

From 1986-89 she lived in India, working for GE International, designing and running training programs in Europe and South Asia. These programs included negotiation, communication skills, intensive interviewing skills, effective people management, person-job matching, and strategic account management.

She established the Mattford Group in 1988. As the original designer of the Negotiating Solutions workshop, she continues to hone the program to keep it current and useful.

In addition to playing around the world with Joe and cherishing their kids and grandkids, Kaye has written a book addressed to the aviation industry. Its title is "Charting a Wiser Course: How Aviation Can Address the Human Side of Change." She is also the human companion of Jetti Bear and Little Bear. Jetti Bear is one of a few American Eskimo dogs to be qualified as a therapy dog. Jetti Bear specializes in helping kids learn to read.


Ronald C. Clegg

Ron's B.S. in business is from LaSalle University. He was a member of the MBA program at the University of Dallas and a graduate of Harvard's Executive Management Program.

In 1995, Ron was sent by Bell Helicopter Textron to check out the Negotiating Solutions workshop for continuing use by Bell. He describes attending the workshop as a life-changing event in his career.

Ron has over forty years' experience in aviation/aerospace, with a focus on the financial, contractual and legal aspects of proposing, negotiating and contracting aerospace business all over the world. For many years he was responsible for and/or negotiated as well as administering all commercial and international contracts for the sale of Bell's products, in locations such as Baghdad, Algiers, Cyprus, Indonesia, Ankara, Bahrain, and Riyadh.

He spent close to twelve years living and working in Vietnam, Iran, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In addition, he had the opportunity to serve as Managing Director of two joint ventures, most recently the Bell/Agusta Aerospace Company.

He retired from Bell in 2007 and joined the Mattford Group training staff in 2008. We are most pleased to have Ron on staff with us.

Ron lives in Fort Worth, Texas, with Rita, his wife of forty-seven years. They enjoy taking cruises, reading, working out, volunteering, music, and walking, but five children and seven+ grandchildren are always a high priority.


Lynn Gates

Lynn began her undergraduate studies at the University of California in Berkeley. Graduation plans, however, were interrupted in her junior year when she fell in love, married and began a family. Thirty years later she returned to Berkeley where in 2007 she graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in Political Science.

While raising her daughters in Oregon, Lynn worked 13 years for Bear Creek Corporation, owner of Harry and David. Starting out in the call center, she then moved into catalog merchandising and marketing (which involved most aspects of the supply chain, including in-house product development and manufacturing), followed by a period as an IT Director. In this role, she tested and implemented new systems, developed training materials and provided user training.

When Bear Creek established its new Business Process Improvement division, Lynn became its director. In this position, she designed and implemented a corporate-wide program in which she developed and ran week-long, team-based workshops to empower employees to improve their work processes. The program proved to be highly successful, with measurable results benefiting the company, customers, employees and community. Over the course of several years, she brought the workshops to nearly every area of the company, including Manufacturing, Materials, Purchasing, Product Development, Finance, Human Resources, Information Technology, Merchandising and Marketing, Customer Service, Sales, and Risk Prevention as well as to its distribution center in Ohio and union-based agricultural site in California.

After attending the Negotiating Solutions workshop in 2000, Lynn set out to learn more about LIFO® and in early 2008 became a LIFO® Certified Trainer.

Lynn lives in Berkeley, California, where she enjoys urban hiking as well as exploring the cultural and culinary riches of the San Francisco Bay Area. She loves to read, is currently learning Spanish and is a beginning practitioner of Qi Gong. Lynn especially treasures time spent with her family – parents, sisters, nieces, nephews and two wonderful daughters – who live throughout California, Oregon, and Nevada.


Office Administration Staff

Susan Pennacchio – Office, Program, and Materials Manager

Susan has worked with the Mattford Group since 1999. She began as our Materials Manager. It takes meticulous and continuing attention to detail to manage the materials for a program as complex as Negotiating Solutions. Susan assures that all workshop materials are of high quality, ordered, shipped, and there when needed. In August 2003, she added Office and Program Management responsibilities to her role. She processes applications, gets pre-work materials to applicants, coordinates with the facilities, and supports Kaye and Joe to make sure all aspects of the program run smoothly. Contact Susan at mattford@gbis.com with any questions you have about enrollment, pre-work materials, workshop venues, the status of your invoice, or other questions about coming to one of our sessions. Should your company want to transfer the workshop in-house, she will work with your people to manage a smooth transition. Susan and her husband Mike, the Risk Manager for Incline Village, cherish their daughter Courtney. Susan spent five years as a captain and nurse in the US Air Force. She is a dedicated soccer mom and a wonderful singer who performs with several community choirs. She remains active in nursing, working part-time as time permits. When she can carve out a little time for herself, Susan takes off for the backcountry in the mountains around Lake Tahoe to camp and meditate as far off the beaten track as possible.


Chris Knopf – Bookkeeper

Chris joined the Mattford Group in 1998 as bookkeeper and office administrator. She lives with her husband Paul, an internationally known business software and data base consultant, children Shane and Jessica, and German Shepherds Florian and Callie at Lake Tahoe. Her background includes eleven years of experience in the travel industry and ten years in business administration, both in the US and in South Africa. Chris enjoys spending time with her family, community involvement (she is part of a group seeking to bring a year-round Olympic-quality ice skating facility to Incline Village), and working as a realtor in Incline Village. She has the added advantage of being able to walk to work, since she lives next door to the office.


Mindy Tindle – Webmaster

Mindy moved to Incline Village in 1995 to establish her own secretarial services company. She brought ten years of secretarial and word processing experience with her. For almost four years, The Mattford Group contracted with her to provide program management, office management, and financial management support. She set up many of our systems, processes, and formats. She moved on to a variety of short-term executive secretarial and administrative support roles in Reno, Nevada, and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, before returning to college to earn an in-depth certificate in desktop publishing. She continued to serve as our consultant regarding computer-based program administration and as our overflow program administrator. In 2002, she designed our website. She continues to maintain it. Upon completion of her studies, Mindy returned to Reno in the summer of 2003 with her children, Mollie and Adam, and their cat, Sylvester. She recently added Cody, a Border Collie mix, and Maddie, a tabby cat, to her brood. Among other projects, she created the text design for and formatted 'Charting a Wiser Course.' She enjoys being in close proximity to the recreational and relaxational resources of Lake Tahoe.

Should you experience any difficulty with accessing our website, requesting information, or sending in an application, please let us know at mattford@aol.com or contact Mindy directly at thetindles@charter.net.