Books & Authors
Dr. Woodrow Sears (Woody)
Woody currently resides in Vilnius, Lithuania, where he writes, lectures at various universities from time-to-time, and enjoys gourmet cooking (I have to take his word on that—no first-hand experience).
He earned one of the early doctorates in Human Resource Development, studying under Leonard Nadler at George Washington University, the man who coined the term and created the professional academic discipline known as HRD. He also holds a master's degree in adult education.
In addition to a long career in business and HR management, Woody was a newspaper reporter and photographer, a Marine officer, and a training director and, in addition to his other interests and activities, is a contributor to ExpertAccess, an e-zine for readers interested in business and HRD topics. See his Author's page on this site for links, if you'd like to read his ExpertAccess articles.
So far, Woody has published thirteen ebooks on Smashwords, including ten business titles, two excellent free books, and most recently, Sh*t City Chronicles: Tales of Pain, Passion, and Civil Wrongs in America's Recent Past.
One of the things I find particularly appealing about Woody's business management books is that they are all "common sense" approaches to what is often an intimidating subject for new supervisors/managers... those who find themselves promoted to management positions and have little or no idea of where to begin!
Bill Minugh
Bill lives in Watsonville, CA with his wife of thirty-two years. He is a native Californian and spent much of his early life in Fresno, in the San Joaquin Valley. He has been a creative and inspired story teller for most of his life. His retirement has now given him time to put pen to virtual paper to write and publish some really wonderful stories.
His first book is a short, free-verse fable, a Christmas story for children from seven to seventy, with original illustrations by William Oliver. The second book will be a collection of short stories.
Please visit Bill's page for to read about how and why he became a Story Teller many long years ago.
Sunny Deuber
JANUARY 1, 2012: Living on the Sunny Side is now available in the Kindle Bookstore on Amazon. If you don't have a Kindle, download the free Kindle for PC software and read any Kindle book on your PC.
January 2010: The print version of Living on the Sunny Side is available for purchase on Amazon.
In late 2006, Sunny left her job as a corporate training and e-learning designer, developer, and classroom facilitator to pursue a new career as a freelance writer and now, as an author, copyeditor, designer, and print-on-demand publisher as well.
She currently lives in the Central Ohio Highlands (also known as hilly farm country and/or the northwestern edge of Appalachia) in eight acres of woods—a dream for many writers, but not so much for someone born and raised in Los Angeles and Central California. Desert rats don't like snow, unless they can drive to the mountains, then home again after skiing! The best part: there are few interruptions, so it's a great place to work.
Sunny's ultimate goal: to eventually return permanently to her native California.
Read about Sunny's book, Living on the Sunny Side, in her own words.
Dan Zahlis
Dan, who lives in cental California, is the president of Active Agenda, an open source software project open to risk management professionals and technologists from around the globe. It is a collaborative, browser based, software product created to assist global enterprises in reducing the operational risk and losses associated with the performance of work. The Active Agenda project is open to interested participants and is managed by the founders of Active Agenda, Inc. To learn more about Active Agenda, please visit their Web site or read a bit more about it on Dan's In his own words page on this site. He has published numerous articles and his name is widely recognized by those in his area of expertise.
Once the Active Agenda user guide project is completed, Dan and Sunny will continue on their collaboration on Value Chain Pirates, a non-fiction book that we hope to complete and publish in 2010.
Update October 2011: Although Active Agenda has been and is being used by companies, corporations, and government agencies all over the world, most of them took advantage of the open source concept and took what was offered without contributing to its original or ongoing development, either monetarily or by contributing programming or support. Sad as it seems, Dan has abandoned the open source concept, became certified as an insurance broker, and is now making the program available only to clients who are willing to pay for what is acknowledged as possibly the best risk management program available.
We hope to continue work on our joint project when the time is right.