Skill Builder Bio’s

Lesley is a wife, mama of two wild little boys, a trauma-informed inner healing guide, and the host of The Kindred Journey Podcast. Lesley bridges embodied healing and spiritual transformation for women ready to stop performing and start becoming who they were created to be.

For 14 years, she built a career as a certified agricultural real estate appraiser before courage led her somewhere she never expected.

Over the past few years, Lesley has learned through her own journey that courage is either chosen or forced in our lives, and stepping into it repeatedly transforms us from the inside out. She loves to hold space for women to experience their emotions without letting them become their identity. 

The Kindred Journey exists because your healing journey isn’t meant to be walked alone. Her mission is to walk beside women as they shed the identities they’ve outgrown and step into the courage to rediscover their true purpose. 

Michelle Choate brings emotional intelligence (EQ) to organizations through MLChoate, Inc., providing coaching, leadership development, facilitation, and consulting for executives and leadership teams across government, higher education, healthcare, the trades, technology, nonprofits, and other industries. Through Elate Retreats, she extends that work into immersive, multi-day experiences focused on personal growth, resilience, and self-leadership.

Michelle holds a master’s degree in Organizational Communication and Conflict Management and is a certified coach and administrator of the EQ-i 2.0 and EQ 360 assessments. With more than 20 years of experience in organizational and individual development, she creates purposeful experiences that help leaders, teams, and individuals look inward with honesty and grace—and use emotional self-awareness and self-management to strengthen leadership, relationships, and workplace effectiveness.

Across both MLChoate and Elate, Michelle’s work is grounded in a simple belief: meaningful growth does not require becoming someone different. It begins by understanding and more intentionally using what is already within us.

Elate Retreats create space to strengthen self-awareness, self-compassion, assertiveness, resilience, and connection—while stepping away from the pace of everyday work and life.

Sara Church is a leadership and workforce development advisor focusing on the human side of organizational success. With a background in leadership, talent development, team development, and organizational performance, Sara brings a practical and people-centered approach to helping individuals and organizations move through challenges and create meaningful change. At the heart of her work is a belief that people are capable of achieving more when they have the tools, support, and courage to overcome obstacles and turn their vision into action.

Simran Crowley teaches in the Conflict Management Program at Boise State University, where she has spent the past seven years teaching students practical skills for navigating conflict with confidence, curiosity, and compassion. She holds a master’s degree focused on Human Connection and Relational Leadership and is passionate about driving more connection and understanding in this world.

In addition to teaching, Simran works as a mediator, facilitator, leadership coach, and trainer with community organizations, nonprofits, businesses, and public agencies. Her work centers on equipping individuals and teams with practical tools to navigate difficult conversations, build trust, and strengthen relationships.

Simran believes that conflict is not the opposite of connection, it is often the pathway to it. Her mission is to change the script around conflict by helping people move away from avoidance and fear and toward courage, authenticity, and meaningful connection. Whether she’s in a classroom, a boardroom, or a mediation, her goal is the same: to help people choose connection, especially when it’s hardest. 

When she’s not working, you can often find her soaking in a hot spring with her husband and two daughters.

Sarah Draper is the Founder of Leading Well Strategies, a TEDx speaker, podcast host, and leadership coach specializing in sustainable high performance. For more than three decades, she served in high-performance environments including West Point, the U.S. Army, and the FBI, where she led national security programs and managed high-stakes operations. After retiring from the FBI, Sarah founded Leading Well Strategies and developed the Real STRength framework: a three-dimensional approach to leadership and well-being.

Through coaching, workshops, and speaking, Sarah works across industries and roles to help people be and lead at their best. She’s particularly passionate about helping women leaders build sustainable performance that honors both ambition and well-being. Her signature tool, the Future Walk, combines movement, forward-focused thinking, and connection to help leaders get unstuck, reconnect to what matters, and design the future they’re building. 

Sarah was a keynote speaker at the 2023 Women in Leadership Conference. She holds degrees from West Point and Gonzaga University and lives in Boise, Idaho, where she and her family love to enjoy the Idaho outdoors.

Cece Gassner is the CEO of CLARIVO, helping leaders and teams create clarity so strategy turns into focused action and sustained momentum. Previously, Cece has held senior positions in the Texas A&M University System, Boise State University, and the City of Boise. She is also an attorney who has worked at some of the country’s largest law firms, specializing in intellectual property and privacy law. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering from Duke University and her law degree from Boston University. She serves and has served on numerous local and international nonprofit boards, and also currently serves on the board of CSHQA, Inc., an employee-owned architectural and engineering firm headquartered in Boise.

Emily Gravel-Fletcher, MHS, is a part-time cowgirl and full-time creative who has built a career at the intersection of grit and expression. As the owner of Free Rein Creative, a marketing collective, and Six Horse Ranch, a horse retirement ranch, Emily brings together two worlds that rarely share a stage. She’s spent years honing marketing strategies that help businesses and brands stand out, all while staying rooted in the values and work ethic of ranch life.

Known to her online following as @emofthemountains, Emily has become a recognizable and respected voice in both the business and ranching communities, carving out space where these worlds intersect.

With a professional background spanning higher education and healthcare, Emily brings a unique, cross-disciplinary perspective to everything she does, leading with connection, authenticity, and impact.

HannaLore Hein is a dynamic leader and public historian, with 15 years of experience across public and private sectors. She holds a BA in History and Ethnic Studies from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and an MA in Applied Historical Research from Boise State University. She also participated in BSU’s Venture College and completed Strelo Group’s Lead & Achieve Professional Development Program.

Since 2019, Hein has served as the Idaho State Historian with the Idaho State Historical Society, providing historical expertise for Idaho’s executive and legislative branches. She also supports agency programs and exhibitions, writes for various publications, delivers public presentations, and manages major initiatives including Idaho’s America250 commemoration. Her publications include articles in The Public Historian and Western Historical Quarterly.

Beyond her professional work, Hein is active in community service, having served on the Boards of the Junior League of Boise, the Boise State Alumni Association, and Tango Boise. In 2023, she received the Michael C. Robinson Award from the National Council on Public History; is a 2019 Woman of the Year, and 2022 Accomplished Under 40 honoree with Idaho Business Review; and a 2026 “40 Under 40” honoree with the Association of Junior Leagues International.

Jamie Lange, LCPC, E-RYT 500, is the owner of Front Street Yoga & Humble Warrior Counseling. She is also the founder of the nonprofit Girls on the Mat. A licensed clinical professional counselor with more than a decade in private practice, Jamie integrates mental health, somatic psychology, yoga philosophy, and mindfulness to help people develop greater emotional awareness, resilience, and authentic leadership.

She holds master’s degrees in Counseling and Communication and Gender Studies and has spent her career teaching, supervising clinicians, training yoga teachers, and developing trauma-informed programs for women, leaders, and girls. Through Girls on the Mat, Jamie has created an innovative curriculum that teaches emotional literacy, nervous system regulation, and leadership skills to girls through self-knowledge, breathwork, and community.

Whether she is leading a yoga teacher training, facilitating a leadership workshop, counseling clients, or speaking to organizations, Jamie’s work is grounded in one belief: healing changes the way we lead, and the way we lead shapes the communities we create. I create you, you create me.

Lauren Lee is a meditation and mindfulness teacher with nearly a decade of practice and training, including Primordial Sound Meditation through the Chopra Center, Buddhist meditation through The Path NYC, MBSR, and mindfulness and resilience coursework through Harvard Extension School.

She also brings nearly two decades of experience in corporate leadership, strategy, partnerships, and business development. Lauren’s approach to meditation is grounded and practical, helping people build greater awareness, steadiness, and connection to themselves in both work and everyday life.

Abbey Louie is a leadership consultant who has spent more than 20 years helping

leaders and organizations build healthier, more connected teams. Her background

includes leading in-house talent and leadership development at a Fortune 50 company

and consulting with organizations of all sizes.

By transitioning from corporate to consulting, Abbey built a career that allowed her to

pursue professional success without sacrificing what mattered most outside of work.

That experience led her to launch Corporate to Consulting, where she helps

experienced professionals build consulting businesses that fit their lives—not the other

way around.

Leslie Major is a CPA, entrepreneur, business strategist, and coach who has spent more than 30 years helping people and businesses grow with greater clarity, intention, and confidence. She has owned five businesses, built and sold an accounting and consulting firm, and today works with business owners through Murphy Business as a business broker and through Major ExitPro as a strategic advisor and consultant.

Throughout her career, Leslie has been fascinated by what helps people build successful businesses and meaningful lives without sacrificing what matters most along the way. Her work combines practical business experience with a deep interest in leadership, personal growth, relationships, and intentional living.

Known for turning complex ideas into practical tools people can immediately put to work, Leslie challenges leaders to step out of constant reaction and become more deliberate about how they use their time, energy, and attention.

Heather Moreno is hired by smart women who struggle to make health and well-being a priority. As a business owner, licensed CPA, and County Supervisor in San Luis Obispo, CA she personally understands the challenges of fitting healthy behaviors into a busy schedule. 

She’s an American College of Sports Medicine Certified Exercise Physiologist, a National Board Certified Health and Well-being Coach, and holds a Master’s degree from Fuller Seminary. With this diverse background, she’s helped thousands of women identify what’s keeping them stuck so they can stop spinning their wheels and reach their health and weight-loss goals. 

Heather specializes in helping busy leaders and achievers integrate healthy habits into demanding lives, sidestep the common mistakes that derail behavior change, and build lasting results through small, sustainable steps.

She owns and operates Weight Breakthrough®, a boutique health and wellness coaching firm on the beautiful central coast of California, and speaks at seminars and conferences nationwide. She appreciates the abundant hiking and wine tasting opportunities all around her, believing you can be healthy and enjoy both!

Rachel Murphy is an estate planning attorney and the founder of Willena PLLC, a flat-fee estate planning firm serving individuals and families in the Treasure Valley. A Chicago-area native and Stanford Law School graduate, Rachel spent more than 15 years practicing law in New York City and at the Illinois Attorney General’s Office before settling in Boise in 2013.

Rachel founded Willena on the belief that estate planning should not be a luxury reserved for the very wealthy. She serves clients with assets under about $4 million, guiding them through estate planning with clear explanations, transparent fees, and a collaborative approach designed to make the process approachable and maybe even enjoyable. Rachel also works with the Idaho Volunteer Lawyers Program to provide free simplified estate plans to those who qualify.

Christy Slanaker did not learn execution in a classroom. She learned it leading distributed teams under real pressure, where a good plan meant nothing until it was delivered.

She became a manager at 23 in a highly regulated banking environment and went on to lead teams ranging from two to more than 200 people across 60+ locations and multiple time zones, carrying revenue and owning P&Ls across banking, fintech, and global payments. Along the way she designed three of her own roles by spotting gaps no one else was solving, and she has trained, coached, and enabled managers across functions and geographies.

Today Christy is the founder of The Dark Horse Advisory, where she helps mid-level managers and their teams close the gap between strategy and execution. They are accountable for results, responsible for people, and rarely handed full authority over either. She has been through all of it in her career. A Boise resident, she completed her Executive MBA at Boise State University in 2026 and will teach International Finance here in Spring 2027.

She facilitates with a calm, practical style and a simple promise: you leave with tools you can use Monday morning.

Ann Smith is the founder of Guide & Grow Consulting and a seasoned talent development leader with decades of experience across services, technology, manufacturing, and non‑profit sectors, including work with Micron, Microsoft, and J.R. Simplot. She partners with organizations to assess, design, and facilitate talent solutions to help individuals, teams, and organizations perform at their best, especially during times of change. Through Guide & Grow, Ann supports leaders and teams with services such as new‑leader integration, interpersonal skills development, and high‑performance team building. A lifelong learner, she brings the same energy to her community through marathon running, coaching Girls on the Run, and volunteering with the Idaho Humane Society.