Testimonials

Excellent workshop and learning presentation from a family/team who not only is sincere about their mission but also deeply caring for others in striving for promoting personal development.

—Bob Garde, President: Magnetic Seal Corporation

Our company, particularly upper management, put a lot of stock in the Performance Dynamics® assessment. It is fast becoming a crucial criterion for selection to executive positions in our company. We are also beginning to utilize the PDA for selection of new managers, as well.

—Rick Lamb, Plant Manager: Advanced Drainage Systems, Inc.

Sometimes it takes someone you know and trust to figuratively smack you across the face to “wake you up” and make you realize your personal weaknesses are affecting your level of overall success. That’s what Ross did for me one day right as I started down a path to lead our family business. Five years later, he has proved to be more of a life coach than anything, which helped me in my personal relations and in turn allowed me to better succeed as a leader in our company. Without Ross, it is clear that my personal and professional relationships would not be as strong as they are today and for that I am forever indebted to him and his team.

—David French, President: Tri- W Group

I won’t lie, at times hearing and then accepting some of the characteristics I possess was VERY hard, but how can I change those things without being aware of them? I can honestly say that within the last month I feel as if I am an entirely new person. There are days that I feel as if a gigantic weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I am much more aware of who I am as an individual now. It is beyond refreshing. This program has given me the chance to become a leader.

—Heather Caisse

As CEO and President of MIR, I’ve had the pleasure of working with Giombetti Associates for over 12 months. As a seasoned executive, with an international background, I’ve worked with a handful of similar firms both in Europe and N. American. Without doubt, the approach, processes and “style” of Ross and the team puts them as my premier partner of choice. Not only do they perform their assessments, they get to know the individuals. They get to understand the business culture and refine the individual’s personal programs to suit both business and team needs.

Of significant note is their ability to deliver “opportunity areas for each person” in a direct but empathetic manner.

They have had a significant effect on our “team working and togetherness.” Individual performance and growth are evident across our organization which I attribute to our working with Giombetti. We continue to build our relationship with Ross and the team and tailoring individual programs for continued growth of the business and our colleagues.

—Brian McSharry, CEO: MidWest Industrial Rubber, Inc. A portfolio Company of Incline Equity Partners

This 3-day program has allowed me to see how my leadership traits have made me into the person that I am today and that I have the ability to change them. My area that I am really trying to focus on is being able to enter into a conversation without being predisposed as to how it is going to end. Valuing all viewpoints so that I can grow as a person and allow others to feel valued and grow as well.

—Dan Hromada, Regional Sales Manager: IGS Energy

We’ve made Giombetti Associates part of the Market Mentors human resources team for many years. Whether we are hiring new staff or helping current team members grow and develop, the Giombetti team provides us with solid insight and practical advice. All of our employees receive the results of their Performance Dynamics assessments, so everyone has a clear understanding of their personality traits and how they fit within the team. This enables us to work more efficiently and helps ensure ongoing growth and development for each individual and our firm as a whole.

—Michelle Abdow, President: Market Mentors, LLC

It will absolutely have an impact on my leadership style, but also my personal style. A lot of the concepts and ideas cross all facets of my life. The personal development will have a positive impact to my personal and professional life. I am learning that when I am mindful of my opportunities, I am identifying when they kick in and am trying different approaches and seeing different results.

It has been awesome to see this influence my day to day. I find myself thinking about my go to action or the actions of my teammates. Not from the aspect of right or wrong, but from a place of understanding mine/their strengths and go-to responses. It has influenced my thought process in that moment, but also opened my “judgement” in those situations.

—Dustin Marshall, Operations Lead: IGS Energy

This assessment was very eye-opening…and accurate. It’s a hard pill to swallow when someone tells you about the things you really need to improve upon. If it wasn’t for this assessment, I would be on the wrong path, believing I was on the right one.

—Darleen Ringenbach, Customer Service Manager: City Stamp Works, Inc.

In addition to recommending and placing A+ leaders within our organization, Giombetti Associates has also provided our leadership team with the tools, structure, and guidance which has helped enable us to successfully scale our organization to meet an increased customer demand for our products and services. Our relationship with Giombetti Associates is now into its 7^th year and continues today due to not only their expertise and breadth of services, but also the manner in which they provide their services. The GA staff is always friendly, outgoing, and energetic. Their honest and personal approach that they take with their clients is something that sets them apart from the ‘fly-by-night’ and internet competition. It is because of these that we hope to continue our relationship for years to come!

—Bobby O’Neil, Director of Operations: Aegis Energy Services

Ross shared a story in class about a guy who was always walking ahead of his family, it was like he was describing me. My family and I went to a pumpkin patch over the weekend and I made a conscious effort to SLOW down and move at their pace. I intentionally did not mention anything about my pace and could feel a better energy from my wife and kids from not being rushed around.

 I mentioned it before but feel it warrants being brought up again. I truly felt like I had known the Giombetti staff for years. It seemed that they all were there to help me be a better person. I know that we all make money doing our jobs, but you would have thought you guys were getting paid millions of dollars for each smile you invoked from the group. To me it felt like a real connection from the beginning. THANK YOU!

—Ernie Edgell, Manager C&I Field Sales: IGS Energy

I have had the privilege of working with Giombetti Associates for the past 20+ years. One of the reasons I continue to use their services is because I believe in their products.

As a leader in my organization, I have been entrusted with many responsibilities; however, nothing I do is more important than hiring and developing people. The assessment tools (Pre-Employment Assessments, Performance Dynamics, 360◦ Review and Leadership Development Training) provided by Giombetti Associates enable me to make better-informed decisions with respect to acquiring talent; while simultaneously delivering important insight to facilitate talent development.

The founder of Giombetti Associates, Rick Giombetti, once told me that “Leadership is a team sport.” Fortunately, the tools utilized by Giombetti Associates have created a win-win situation for their clients and their associates.

—Jim Porcaro, Vice President of Operations: Inline Plastics Corps.

For nearly 30 years, our team at Riverlake Partners has engaged Giombetti & Associates to help improve our odds of success for key hires across our portfolio companies nationwide. As we build executive teams, we rely on Giombetti’s Performance Dynamics® to assess the qualities and characteristics of each leader, with the goal of assembling highly functional teams where individual strengths and weaknesses complement one another.

One of the first steps in building our leadership teams is the implementation of Giombetti’s 360 Degree Review process, beginning with the CEO and expanding from there. This approach creates buy-in, encourages honest feedback and provides real data to address challenges and build on strengths. Without real feedback, credibility—and ultimately success—is difficult to achieve.

—Erik Krieger, Partner: Riverlake Partners

I was introduced to Rick by a college buddy I was meeting for dinner. During dinner Rick was asking me way too many questions and I responded, “have you finished analyzing me yet?” Rick responded yes and proceeded to tell me about his company, Giombetti Associates, and offered to do a complete analysis on myself to show how the program worked.

That was in 2005. Afterwards I was so impressed with the process I immediately put my entire senior management team through the process. Everyone was amazed at how thorough the process was and how helpful it was to better understand themselves as leaders and a much clearer understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. I then had Rick put them all together and had him coach me as to how I could be a better leader by knowing how to interpret my skill set against theirs.

That session has been a key to my long and successful career as the President and now CEO of Savage Arms. It was also instrumental in helping us understand the contributing factors to our company culture. Since then we have not hired a single salaried employee without having an assessment done. Although not a perfect system it has really helped us from making many hiring mistakes. If I received a commission on all my referrals over the years I would be retired with Rick. I have never had a referral complaint.

—Al Kasper, President/CEO: Savage Arms

W.F. Young, Inc. has worked with Giombetti Associates for more than 17 years. We have every employee go through the process at least once when they start with the company and many go through multiple times as they develop within the company or need some additional guidance in their career.

We find the information to be valuable for the company, helping to understand the employees, knowing what motivates them, how much or little information they need to do their work and how to best match up teams, just to name a few. However, the biggest benefit, I believe, is for the employees themselves – most come into the company without ever having done much self-reflection.

It is incredibly empowering to understand your own make-up and get a sense of who you are and how you approach your life and work. I have personally been through the assessment multiple times and I continue to learn and figure out how to enhance the areas that are helping me develop, and working with the team at Giombetti, better manage those traits that are maybe preventing me from growing both personally and professionally.

—Vicki Evans, Vice President/CFO: W.F. Young, Inc.

This program was the start and push that I needed when I was in high school and I still utilize many of the lessons that they taught me. Through hard work and perseverance and some GA help, I am now a wastewater engineer. I will be forever grateful for the chance to be a part of this great program and for being able to talk with them even after I graduated high school and college.

—Olivia Hicklin

Hey guys,

I wanted to take a few days to reflect and absorb the training and see how some of the suggestions and realizations from last week played out once I was back in “the real world”, before sending this email to you. I won’t lie and tell you that I did not come into this training with a certain amount of skepticism. I have done a few of these types of things over my career before and quite frankly, I thought they were a great way for the people presenting to make a living. I mean, you get to stand up in front of a room full of people and tell them how to be a better (fill in the blank here), and how to contribute to their companies in a more effective manner. And get payed for it!

A few things that I observed to help make this a different dynamic are as follows.

1. You all sat at the same level as us.
   • There wasn’t any feeling of this being a PRESENTATION. It truly felt like a discussion. Which I’m sure was by design. It made it so comfortable to actually share thoughts and ideas. It’s much easier to check out when you are being “talked to”.
     1. I have tried to be mindful of my body language and positioning when I have had discussions with team members, co-workers, or family.
2. You allowed us to have different goals.
   • What I mean by this is, you allowed us to have different end games for this training. I know some of the team wanted to try to reach problem employees or be a better manager, while some others wanted to focus on how to be a better husband, father or friend. As well as the evolution of that goal. Some of the statements about the takeaways at the end were not in line with what they thought they would get out of it.
     1. No names, but several folks that said they wanted to be a better manager or better leader at the end talked about not being real or open with personal relationships versus the professional aspect. I think the correlation between who you are outside of work, as a person, and who your team thinks you are was eye opening. At least it was to me!!
     2. I have made a concerted effort to try to make sure that I am sensitive to the fact that different people want/need different things. And that’s OK!
3. You were real!
   • This is huge for me. I like to think that I have a pretty good B.S. meter and the minute the needle starts to move; I tend to shut down and just get through the interaction as quickly and painlessly as possible.
     1. From the second we came in, you all had big smiles and warm invite
     2. You shared personal stories that left you out there, vulnerable. This helped me be real and open.

I can’t tell you how much warmth and genuine compassion I felt from all of you during the training. I know my goodwill score is 96, which I’m sure contributes to me being a bit sappy at times, but I was a bit surprised that I got emotional in a room full of strangers when I talked about how I want to make things better with my family. I know that is a direct result of the environment that you ALL built over the course of the 3 days.

Not to keep going on, but I wanted to share a couple things that I have already done differently that I know was appreciated, even though nobody said a word. The first was as my family sat down for our weekly board game night, I made sure that I was the one to make sure that everyone had drinks, snacks whatever we needed before we started. That has always just been handled by Michelle, my wife. There is NO reason that she needs to be the last one to sit down, even if she doesn’t complain. Another thing is we were going to the grocery store and I turned the radio station to the one that my family likes. The world stopped for a minute…LOL . I despise 95% of the music on “their” station! I mean how can you go wrong with listening to Boston or Van Morrison??? But in that moment of pain and despair of listening to the latest and greatest from, whatever the flavor of the week was, I noticed all 3 of them kind of bounce their heads a bit to the rhythm. That was cool. I mean really, why should I get to decide what music we listen to ALL THE TIME? Just because I happen to be the one driving, which oh by the way, I don’t want anyone else to drive but me??? To quote a very wise man…that’s BAD, BAD, BAD. STOP IT! Haha, I must have heard Rick say that 40 times last week!!

Seriously guys, thank you all for the love and compassion that I felt from all of you. It means more than I can tell you! I look forward to speaking with you soon. Take care.

—Ernie Edgell, Manager C&I Field Sales: IGS Energy

Great experience! Gives you tools to improve your effectiveness. Provided the opportunity to role play and interact with peers who are faced with similar challenges to be effective with our personnel. I learned that collaboration and communication are important skills to use to solve any problem. Rick Giombetti and his staff created a challenging and fun packed seminar.

—David Cistoldi, President: FLN-MAR Rubber & Plastics, Inc.

At Incline and across our portfolio companies, we operate at a fast pace and hold teams to a very high standard. Giombetti’s 360 Degree Review program gives us a clear, well-rounded view of how our leaders are showing up across the organization—not just what they deliver, but how they lead. That perspective is invaluable for focused coaching and for building aligned, high-performing teams in demanding environments.

—Jack Glover, Managing Partner: Incline Equity Partners

Ross and Laura were always there to answer our questions, and we felt grateful and super comfortable with this intimidating process. They allowed us to focus on helping our son make a very important decision.

— Dr. Neil N.

The Giombetti Leadership program has changed my life and helped me discover who I am. As I look back on this experience, this program helped me be a better team player, a happier person and overall a better leader in all aspects of my life. The team members create an atmosphere that allows you to improve yourself and truly discover who you are.

—Katie Acciardo