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About Dr. Ira Wolfe and Marilyn Walker

Intuitive, practical and down-to-earth is the way Ira Wolfe has been described by clients and colleagues alike. As founder of Success Performance Solutions and president of Poised for the Future Company, Ira S. Wolfe is considered one of the brightest and most talented minds at assessing employees for job performance. His approach to employee selection and performance management has earned him the endorsement and respect of both business leaders as well as consultants.

Ira delivered a provocative forecast of the 10- and 20-year labor market in 1999. Soon Ira found himself speaking to audiences all over North America on The Perfect Labor Storm: Why Worker Shortages Won't Go Away and in 2004 published a book by the same name.   The completely updated and rewritten 2nd edition, The Perfect Labor Storm 2.0: Workforce Trends That Will Change The Way You Do Business, was published in September.   In his dynamic yet down-to-style style, Ira "tracks" the compelling story of demographic, economic, social and technological forces and reveals how far reaching and long lasting their effects would be on this worker and skills shortage.

 

In 2003 Ira received trademark status for his job benchmarking, employee selection, and performance management system called CriteriaOne.

 

Ira is the also the author of Understanding Business Values and Motivators (2004). He is a columnist for the Business2Business magazine and is quoted regularly in stories published in the Central Penn Business Journal , Sales and Marketing Management , and many regional and national magazines. He has been a frequent guest on Pennsylvania Cable Network discussing skilled worker shortages, pandemic flu and the economic impact of workforce trends.  In July 2007, Ira delivered the keynote for a special PA Chamber Foundation Roundtable about the Skilled Worker Crisis in PA.  The 3-hour event was televised by PCN.  He has also appeared on CN8, hosted a radio talk show, and has been quoted in Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeekOnline.   In the June 2003 issue of Workforce Magazine, Ira was one of several expert consultants interviewed for 25 Trends That Will Change The Way You Do Business .

As a result of his leadership, direction, and innovation Success Performance Solutions has attracted clients from its corporate home in Pennsylvania to Canada, Hong Kong and even Cyprus. These clients include manufacturers, hospitals and health care systems, retirement communities, distribution centers, call centers and technology firms as well as many entrepreneurs and consultants.

Ira is an active director on several boards including the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Ephrata Community Hospital. He has been chairperson of the Entrerpeurial Task Force for Lancaster Prosper, an initiative to connect investors with entrepreneurs, since 2004.

Wolfe is completing his Master's Degree in Leadership and Business Ethics at Duquesne University.

Past Speaking Engagements

  • Carlisle Chamber of Commerce (November 2007)
  • Material Handlers Conference (September 2007)
  • ISA Worldwide (September 2007)
  • 2007 PA Chamber Foundation Roundtable on Skilled Worker Crisis
  • Associated Builders and Contractors (Keystone Chapter) 2006, 2007
  • 2005 International Builders Show (also 2002, 2003)
  • Institute of Quality and Productivity Center
  • 2003 PA Chamber of Commerce Annual Human Resource Conference (keynote)
  • 2003 Lancaster Business Expo
  • 2003 Institute of Management Consultants
  • Fort Wayne Chamber of Commerce Workforce Summit
  • VHA Pennsylvania
  • Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
  • Association of Administrative Personnel
  • Industrial Modernization Center, Inc.
  • Lancaster County Chamber of Commerce
  • Lancaster Workforce Summit
  • TTI International Winter Conference
  • Maximum Potential Annual Meeting
  • HRD Press Annual Meeting
  • Clements Consulting Group (Calgary)
  • Academy of General Dentistry (Toronto)
  • Datacon Dental Systems
  • FDI World Dental Congress (Kuala Lumpur)

Marilyn Havner Walker joined Success Performance Solutions in 2004 as Director of Employee Assessment Center and recently started the Right Turn on Red, a career coaching program for women.  Marilyn was a stay-at-home wife and mother before she was separated from her husband in 1994. Having a 20-year-old Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology, and no formal adult job experience, she considered a graduate degree to be the “key to my future.” After three years, sharing custody of their five children and sometimes working three part-time jobs, she completed a Master of Science in Clinical Psychology at the age of 45.

Following graduate school Marilyn was employed as a psychotherapist in an inpatient mental health unit, a partial hospital program, and a private outpatient practice. Although she loved her job it did not provide her with the benefits or the hours that she needed as a single mother and she was forced to seek other employment.

She accepted a position as the regional director of a national non-profit social service agency specializing in adoption. During her three-year tenure at the agency she was appointed to a national policy-making board, conducted a training at a national staff conference, developed a marketing program that was utilized in different parts of the country, and was respected as a leader among her colleagues.

Make The Right Turn On Red™is the result of Marilyn’s search for a new direction for her life. Believing that women provide inspiration to each other she began this program to allow women the opportunity to inspire others through sharing their stories, to provide a resource for women who are experiencing life changes, and to provide an avenue for women to ask questions of others who have experienced similar situations.