Natural Foods Leadership Development Training
Produced & Presented by
Carolee Colter, Mark Mulcahy, and Allen Seidner
The Rising Stars Training Experience
Our Seminars Are Dynamic! These interactive experiences are like no other management training opportunity in natural foods retailing. We use a variety of presentation formats to ensure your engagement and participation, including:
Presenters with Slide Show Content
We bring three very different voices and in any given hour you’re likely to hear from all three of us. Switching up the speaker is just one way we help keep your interest.
Presenters with Slide Show Content
We bring three very different voices and in any given hour you’re likely to hear from all three of us. Switching up the speaker is just one way we help keep your interest.
Small Group and Individual Work Projects
Some exercises involve self-reflection and you’ll work on these independently to respect your privacy. More commonly, we’ll break into smaller work groups so you can develop, converse, rehearse or complete a creative assignment.
Small Group and Individual Work Projects
Some exercises involve self-reflection and you’ll work on these independently to respect your privacy. More commonly, we’ll break into smaller work groups so you can develop, converse, rehearse or complete a creative assignment.
Presenter Role-Plays
We present role plays as content-related models of (typically) good leadership. They’re the right blend of serious and funny, allow everyone to relate to the content and serve as a jumping off point for conversations and small group work.
We’d like to note that some roles are available for interested participants but that no one is ever required to speak before the group, except to briefly introduce yourself on the first day.
Presenter Role-Plays
We present role plays as content-related models of (typically) good leadership. They’re the right blend of serious and funny, allow everyone to relate to the content and serve as a jumping off point for conversations and small group work.
We’d like to note that some roles are available for interested participants but that no one is ever required to speak before the group, except to briefly introduce yourself on the first day.
Work Games
Our seminars feature creative work games to give you experiential insight and have fun with the content. People do get competitive, but you don’t have to.
Work Games
Our seminars feature creative work games to give you experiential insight and have fun with the content. People do get competitive, but you don’t have to.
Participant Materials
A Workbook
A well-organized workbook of our content-relevant proprietary forms, worksheets, articles and other docs.
Digital Documents
We’ll share digital copies of content-relevant documents and encourage you to edit and use them.
“Surpassed my expectations by far. It’s an incredible thing you three do, to create a learning experience that is chock-full of nuts and bolts, nitty-gritty content, that’s carried along (but not overwhelmed) by an undercurrent of spirituality and love. I would not hesitate to recommend this seminar to others and I would insist on it for anyone in a leadership position in my store.”
Patricia Smith, Operations Mgr Willimantic Food Co-op, Willimantic, CT“Our managers came back completely inspired and invigorated by their time at Rising Stars 2. They expressed gratitude for the investment, and appreciation for the breadth and depth of the training. We are proud to continue our commitment to sending our managers through Rising Stars 1 and 2.”
Chris Maher, General Mgr, BriarPatch Co-op, Grass Valley CA“I am leaving with many good ideas and an agenda to put them into action. I felt engaged throughout and there was plenty of time for questions. I dislike math intensely, but enjoyed the way this segment was presented.”
Jim Watkins, Foodservice Mgr, Central Co-op, Seattle“This training is engaging, perfectly relevant to all positions, and inspiring. There is no way to put into words the joy that I am leaving with. I have a refreshed vision of my role and my co-op. The content is presented in an inviting and entertaining way that forces you to suck it all in with a smile!”
Rachael Eide, Training Coordinator Lakewinds Food Co-op. Minnetonka, MNThe Presenters
We look forward to our continued work with you.
Allen Seidner, Carolee Colter & Mark Mulcahy
We’re The Rising Stars Leadership Group—Allen Seidner, Carolee Colter and Mark Mulcahy (left to right). We’ve each spent pretty much our entire working lives in the organic and natural foods business. Obviously, we’re not kids anymore, so that’s a lot of years.
We’ve been owners, leaders and staff—with specialties in human resources, produce and prepared foods. We’ve worked in co-ops, independents, a warehouse and for publicly held heavyweights. We’ve had bosses and we’ve been bosses. We’ve had staff and customers too, of course. Now, and for the past couple decades each, we’ve been consultants, to hundreds of great co-ops and independently owned businesses.
We’ve worked together creating and presenting Rising Stars Seminars, more than three score of them, since 1999. We love doing every single one of them, and that we get to work with the next generation of natural foods leaders. We see our opportunity to present seminars as a precious privilege, and we’ll hope you join us soon.
Carolee Colter
Carolee Colter is a member of Columinate. She specializes in personnel management and organizational development for the natural foods industry. With the involvement of managers and employees, she conducts employee surveys and develops staffing plans, job descriptions, pay scales, performance evaluations, personnel policies and training programs.
Carolee regularly writes for trade publications and presents seminars for CCMA, Provender Alliance and other conferences. She has authored the manual for boards of directors, “Hiring a General Manager” available through Cooperative Grocer Network. She has also written Retail Basics 103: Supervision and Teambuilding, for new supervisors in food co-ops.
Mark Mulcahy
Mark Mulcahy is an award winning retail consultant, educator, and organic advocate. He is the owner of Organic Options, which provides consulting for co-ops and independent retailers worldwide. With more than 35 years in the organic produce industry, Mark is well known for his creative merchandising, effective training techniques, passion for produce, successful financial strategies and dedication to sustainable agriculture.
Mark is the co-creator and presenter of Roots & Relationships, a fun, interactive and inspiring journey into our food and its relationship and connection with our mind, body and community. Mark also leads the Passion, Purpose and Produce gathering at the Whidbey Institute – an intimate and hands-on intensive exploration to re-discover your passion for food and to re-activate your purpose as a change agent in the sustainable food movement.
Allen Seidner
Allen Seidner, principal of Thought For Food Consulting, specializes in prepared foods department design and operations consulting for cooperative and independently owned natural foods retailers. Allen has worked in foodservice for most of his life, and as a prepared foods operations designer since 1997, having since created program, financial and fixture plans for scores of leading retailers in the U.S. and Canada.
Allen is a former partner at Good Earth Natural Foods in Fairfax, Calif., regional foodservice director for Wild Oats Markets, and prepared foods team leader for Whole Foods Markets. He produces his own 3-day small group prepared foods operations intensive, DeliOps 101, and is co-creator and -presenter of the Rising Stars Seminars. An archive of Allen’s published articles on foodservice and leadership development issues is available here.
