About the Editor
Elaine Biech is president and managing principal of ebb associates inc, an organization and leadership development firm that helps organizations work through large-scale change. She has been in the training and consulting field for over thirty years, working with private industry, government, and non-profit organizations.
Elaine specializes in helping people work as teams to maximize their effectiveness. Customizing all of her work for individual clients, she conducts strategic planning sessions and implements corporate-wide systems such as quality improvement, change management, reengineering of business processes, and mentoring programs. She facilitates topics such as coaching today’s employee, fostering creativity, customer service, creating leadership development programs, time management, speaking skills, coaching, consulting skills, training competence, conducting productive meetings, managing corporate-wide change, handling the difficult employee, organizational communication, conflict resolution, and effective listening. She is particularly adept at turning dysfunctional teams into productive teams.
She has developed media presentations and training materials and has presented at dozens of national and international conferences. Known as a trainer’s trainer, she custom designs training programs for managers, leaders, trainers, and consultants. Elaine has been featured in dozens of publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Management Update, Washington Post, and Fortune magazine.
As a management and executive consultant, trainer, and designer, she has provided services to Outback Steakhouse, FAA, Land O’ Lakes, McDonald’s, Lands’ End, General Casualty Insurance, Chrysler, Johnson Wax, PricewaterhouseCoopers, American Family Insurance, Marathon Oil, Hershey Chocolate, Federal Reserve Bank, U.S. Navy, NASA, Newport News Shipbuilding, Kohler Company, ASTD, American Red Cross, Association of Independent Certified Public Accountants, the University of Wisconsin, The College of William and Mary, ODU, and hundreds of other public- and private-sector organizations to prepare them for the challenges of the new millennium.
She is the author and editor of more than fifty books, including A Coach’s Guide to Developing Exemplary Leaders; ASTD Leadership Handbook; ASTD’s Ultimate Train the Trainer; 10 Steps to Successful Training; The Consultant’s Quick Start Guide (2nd ed.); ASTD Handbook for Workplace Learning Professionals; The Business of Consulting (2nd ed.); Thriving Through Change; Successful Team-Building Tools (2nd ed.); 90 World-Class Activities by 90 World-Class Trainers (named a Training Review Best Training Product of 2007); and the nine-volume set of ASTD’s Certification Study Guides. Her books have been translated into Chinese, German, and Dutch.
Elaine has her B.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Superior in business and education consulting and her master’s in human resource development. She is active at the national level of ASTD, is a lifetime member, served on the 1990 National Conference Design Committee, was a member of the National ASTD Board of Directors and the society’s secretary from 1991 to 1994, initiated and chaired Consultant’s Day for seven years, and was the International Conference Design Chair in 2000. In addition to her work with ASTD, she has served on the Independent Consultants Association’s (ICA) Advisory Committee and on the Instructional Systems Association (ISA) board of directors.
Elaine is the recipient of the 1992 National ASTD Torch Award, the 2004 ASTD Volunteer-Staff Partnership Award, and the 2006 ASTD Gordon M. Bliss Memorial Award. She was selected for the 1995 Wisconsin Women Entrepreneur’s Mentor Award. In 2001 she received ISA’s highest award, The ISA Spirit Award. She has been the consulting editor of the prestigious Training and Consulting Annuals published by Pfeiffer for the past fourteen years.