Amina Knowlan, MS

Founder, Director & Lead Trainer, Boulder, CO
Amina cofounded Matrix Leadership in 1990 (previously Group Leadership Training). She has been facilitating groups and trainings for 30 years. She considers herself a social artist and works as a trainer, facilitator, consultant and spiritual-somatic life coach. She was a trainer for the Hakomi Institute of Body-Centered Psychotherapy for 15 years and an owner/practitioner in Wellspring, Partners in Health (a holistic medical clinic) for 15 years. She incorporates somatic, energetic and intuitive approaches as well as dance, movement, voice, art and practices of mindfulness into her work. She also leads retreats for women entitled Fully Embodied Woman: Remembering the Sacred Feminine. Amina has two children and lives in the beautiful mountain foothills of Boulder, Colorado.

Deb Sherer, BA

Senior Trainer, Evanston, IL
Deb, a practicing somatic therapist, has been with Matrix Leadership since 1994. She brings her background in Internal Family Systems and Process Work into her heartfelt range of leadership. She is a graduate of two Hakomi trainings. Through this body-centered psychotherapeutic model, she has specialized in working with trauma. Deb has also studied with and is a member of a Qero Indian Shamanic group. Her shamanic and medicine wheel training forms the foundation for her clinical work with individuals. Deb has a B.A. from Washington University with a certification in secondary education and is a graduate of the Chicago School of Massage Therapy. She is married and has four children and two grandchildren.

Raven Wells

Co-Director & Trainer, Boulder, CO
Raven has been studying and working with Matrix Leadership since 2000. He currently leads psychotherapy process groups and is a consultant for Shifting Culture. In the past, he has worked as a Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician, a ropes course facilitator, a climbing guide and a guide for back-country youth-at-risk programs. Raven was in private practice as a psychotherapist for five years, specializing in trauma recovery. He served as an assistant trainer for Hakomi Integrative Somatics, taught with the Trauma Dynamics Institute, and spent five years facilitating teenage addiction recovery classes for Boulder County Probation.

Jack Spivak, BS, MS

Trainer, Boulder, CO
As a facilitator and trainer Jack brings 25+ years perspective from teaching, living systems research, and bioengineering. With an academic background in aerospace and bioengineering, Jack has led diverse groups since 1975 as a project engineer, an internationally certified technical trainer, and an environmental activist. He is passionately inspired by the realization that creative, loving, effective, and satisfying groups are actually possible. He is dedicated to their emergence in our day to day lives. Living an intimate and comfortable dance with Chaos, Jack describes himself as "a surprisingly human engineer whose best and worst qualities are probably the same." He practices what he preaches daily as a loving partner and father of his son.

Carol Jungman, MSOD

Trainer & Organizer, Evanston, IL
Carol is a Cross-Cultural Training Consultant, Cendant Mobility Organization Development Consultant and Facilitator, and Matrix Leadership facilitator. Carol has been with Matrix Leadership/GLT since 1998. She has over 13 years of experience managing and training within the intercultural and organizational development fields. Carol has facilitated and co-created individual, couple, family and specialized group programs for Fortune 1000 companies and has designed and led staff retreats and strategic planning sessions for small and mid-size businesses and not-for-profits. She was also a leader in the Chicago Psychology Network for several years. Prior to that, Carol lived and worked in Finland and Israel, and traveled extensively throughout Europe. She received her Bachelors degree in business and journalism and her Masters degree in organization development. She is married and has two young children.

Gregory Gaiser, CMT, CHT

Trainer, San Antonio, TX
Gregory utilizes his 25+ years as a therapist in the Matrix Leadership Trainings. Gregory is a certified massage therapist as well as an Hakomi Teacher, so he brings a sound influence of body mind integration to the trainings as well. He first studied group dynamics with Amina Knowlan in 1990. He is well educated in the resolution of trauma as well. He is known for his warm and solid teaching style, and has led Hakomi workshops, trauma workshops and MLT throughout the U.S. and abroad.

Debra Sheehen, BS, MT, RCST

Facilitator, IN
Debra has been in the field of massage therapy/somatic education for 20 years. She has studied mind/body therapies with the Hakomi Institute and Center for Self Leadership/Internal Family Systems and body therapies of Orthobionomy/Craniosacral work throughout the 20 years. For the past 6 years, she has studied with world-renowned teachers in pediatric, pre- and perinatal birth psychology. She has studied with the HeartMath Institute in California and is now a licensed provider teaching and coaching these concepts to individuals. Her passion and compassion for integrating all of one's self, and being led by one's authentic Self has led her to be on the teaching teams for Craniosacral work and Matrix Leadership. She is currently teaching these concepts to help women in poverty become aware of transgenerational patterns and utilize the new sciences to "grow" the brain of a child to change these patterns through awareness and love.

Joanne DeMark, PhD, CHT

Trainer & Organizer, Atlanta, GA
Joanne brings 30+ years of experience as a facilitator, human resource development executive and consultant, academic, Hakomi psychotherapist, and social justice activist to her work with Matrix Leadership Institute. She received her Ph.D. in an APA-approved Counseling Psychology program from the University of Florida. In private practice, she has seen clients for couples work, career counseling and guidance, executive coaching, anxiety disorders and self esteem/self identity issues, connecting the work to mind/body/spirit integration and a social justice perspective. Joanne has been the senior HRD executive in a leading firm in the health care information systems and services industry, and has consulted to companies, healthcare, nonprofits, universities and schools, communities of faith, and federal, state and local government throughout the country. Joanne is Associate Director, a founding member, and a constituency caucus leader for the Atlanta chapter of the National Coalition Building Institute International. She co-created Social Artistry for Social Justice, which integrates Matrix Leadership and culturally competent facilitation skills.

Tom Pigman, BS

Facilitator, Williamsport, IN
Tom Pigman is a facilitator with Matrix Leadership/GLT and has been involved with the organization for six years. He has more than a dozen years of experience in community development and is currently working as a director of youth outreach, helping teens connect with their communities and families. Tom has lived and worked in West Africa (Ghana), Brazil, and Chile, where he was involved in rural economic development. Tom has been trained and has led groups in the Group Facilitation process and Participatory Strategic planning methods of ICA (Institute of Cultural Affairs). Tom received his BS degree from Southern Illinois University. He resides on a forty acre farm in rural Indiana, along his wife and three children.

Charna Rosenholtz, BA, NCTMB

Facilitator, Boulder, CO
Charna holds her degree in communication theory and psychology from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Charna is a healing arts practitioner with over 20 years of experience in the fields of therapeutic massage and bodywork, body-centered psychotherapy, nutrition, dream work and energy work. A national educator and lecturer on massage and wellness, Charna has presented in a wide variety of settings and sits on the national Board of Directors with the American Massage Therapy Association. She has studied with medicine woman, clergy, and master teachers regarding personal growth and spiritual health. Charna has been working with teens since 1997 to help them to build awareness in regard to the difficulty of growing up in today's world as well as presented on issues of spirituality to all age groups. Charna has completed in a certificate course in spiritual storytelling and is a graduate student of comparative religious studies at Naropa University, in Boulder, CO.

Paul Kuykendall

West Coast Organizer, San Jose, CA
Paul is a counselor and group facilitator for South Bay Groups. He holds a BA in Philosophy from Santa Clara University and is a graduate of the Hakomi Institute of San Francisco. He also trained in the Hakomi Method and Assisted Self-Discovery with Ron Kurtz, the founder of Hakomi. Paul uses Assisted Self-Discovery Counseling to enable individual and group clients to develop awareness in responding to stress, change and difficult life situations.

Arlyn Deva Heideman

Apprentice Facilitator, Boulder, CO
Arlyn has been leading workshops and groups for 8 years (and participating in them all her life) and brings her love of creative expression, deep listening and hope for an awakened society to her leadership and office work. Arlyn is a graduate from Matrix Leadership Institute's Facilitator Training and has her B.A. degree in Expressive Arts through Prescott College. She is a DJ (radio and dance parties), loves book-arts, and has been a professional performer of aerial work, stilts, improvisation and as a co-choreographer. Arlyn has led movement in a variety of contexts including spiritual retreats, an outdoor dance party for hundreds of people, community holiday celebrations, on the beach in Mexico and more. "My prayer is to be exactly in the present moment and know myself as love."