Meet Julie O'Mara, Consultant, strategist, author, facilitator, champion of diversity.

Since 1972, Julie O’Mara has been president of O’Mara and Associates, an organizational development consulting firm specializing in leadership and the managing diversity process.  A former National President of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), she also teaches for John F. Kennedy University. Julie is a partner with Performance Champions and works with MemeWorks, an Internet start-up company in the e-performance arena.  

She is co-author of Managing Workforce 2000: Gaining the Diversity Advantage, a bestseller published by Jossey-Bass in 1991, and author of Diversity Activities and Training Designs, a manual of activities, lecturettes, and guidelines for effective diversity training, published by Pfeiffer and Company in 1994.  In 2001, PrimeLearning developed five e-learning diversity modules based on her work.  

She works with a wide variety of clients both in the public and private sector.  Some assignments help guide major organizational culture change efforts over several years. Other assignments are shorter in duration.  In addition to consulting, she designs and delivers presentations, training programs, and trains trainers.  As an associate of the Management Research Group she is certified to use its Leadership 360®, Strategic Directions, and leadership coaching processes.  As a Field Manager for Inscape Publishing, she uses and distributes their learning tools.  

Her work in diversity began in the early 1970s when she designed and delivered management development programs for women and people of color, certifying trainers in several of them.  She is the former director of communications for The Marmon Group, a billion-dollar international conglomerate of heavy industrial firms based in Chicago.  She also was supervisor of marketing communications for Whirlpool Corporation, where she was not only part of the team that introduced the Trash Masher Compactor, but also served as consumer spokesperson appearing on radio, television, and in print.  She has a B.S. from the University of Missouri.  

Julie has been a volunteer leader for ASTD since 1977, serving as its national president in 1983.  She belongs to the Organization Development Network and the Northern California Human Resource Council, serves as advisor for At Work:  Stories of Tomorrow’s Workplace, a newsletter.  She has taught Organizational Development and Assessment at the SFSU College of Extended Learning.  She is a member of the Diversity Collegium, professionals dedicated to advancing the field of Diversity through research and learning, and a co-sponsor of Diversity 2000, an annual conference using Open Space Technology.  Julie is also a founding member of the Diversity Leadership Forum.   

Among Julie’s professional honors are ASTD’s Torch Award for outstanding service; the ASTD Women’s Network Professional Leadership Development Award; the 1993 Honored Instructor award for outstanding service from the University of California Extension, Berkeley; the 1995 Ben Bostic Trainer of the Year Award from ASTD’s Multicultural Network; and ASTD’s Valuing Differences Award for 1996 presented to the Royal Bank of Canada and Julie O’Mara.