Meet Your Trainers

Richard Delaney

Richard Delaney

Licenced IAP2 Trainer

A recognized leader in the field, Richard is passionate about community and stakeholder engagement. He never misses an opportunity to promote its benefits in support of public- and private-sector decision-making. As a licensed IAP2 trainer since 2007, and one of the organization’s most recognized trainers, he brings the (almost) perfect balance of intense, high-stakes, real-world experience, research and facilitation to his training practice. As a member of the IAP2 faculty, and active in training materials and standards development, including the IAP2 Foundations redevelopment team that he co-led, Richard likes to be on the cutting edge of professional practice for this discipline. Richard is past Chair of the St. Laurent chapter and is presently serving on the IAP2 Trainer Advisory Committee. He is also a faculty member of the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) Governance Centre for Excellence since 2011.

Richard brings the often-challenging material of the IAP2 Foundations Planning module to life by sharing his 25+ years of P2 experience through real-life stories and examples. He is skilled, too, at creating a warm and friendly space where participants are comfortable sharing their knowledge and experiences with the group. He firmly believes in, and encourages participants (actually bribes them with chocolate) to share those experiences that as engagement facilitators we might like to forget. He knows they represent a treasure trove of learning.

Richard has more than 3,500 hours of experience in classroom delivery and over 100 hours of online delivery. He is proud to report that over 50% of participants answer “yes” to the evaluation question: “Did you seek out Engage Delaney training?”

What’s your favourite training quote?

“If you look out through my view and I through yours, we will both see something we have never seen before.”

Peter Senge

Jessica Delaney

Jessica Delaney

Licenced IAP2 Trainer

A Certified Public Participation Professional (CP3) with diverse engagement and communications experience, Jessica is an energetic and participant-focused trainer. Jessica brings a variety of real-life experiences, case studies, videos and other interactive activities to make learning fun, real-time and applicable. She has in-depth experience in engaging those who are hard to reach and works to reduce barriers to participation - a key theme of her training approach. As a licensed IAP2 trainer since 2014, Jessica brings a combination of experience as an engagement and communications professional and certified professional facilitator to her training practice.

Jessica works to make often complex concepts meaningful and straightforward to the working professional who is seeking to learn engagement planning and implementation best practices.
What’s your favourite training quote?

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”

Stephen Covey

Valerie Delaney

Valerie Delaney

Principal, Learning and Development

Valerie is our course registrar and administrator, and works with our trainers to support their training activities. Valerie loves talking with people about their training needs and our course offerings.

A professionally trained educator (Ontario Certified Teacher – OCT), she promotes the principles of adult learning and the needs of adult learners. Valerie believes that the learner’s journey is unique for each participant and builds that notion into her training design and development activities.

What’s your favourite training quote?

“Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.”

Mark Twain

Brenda Kortekaas

Brenda Kortekaas

Specialist, Learning and Development

Brenda is our client liaison representative. Brenda’s background in the fast-paced environment of the hotel and restaurant business has given her the ability to work under pressure and to help our training participants in her friendly, efficient way.

We love to have fun when we train, and we know people love to have fun when they learn. It’s part of creating a positive learning environment and all it takes is preparation and attention to detail. Brenda takes care of a multitude of details for our courses. From ordering and shipping training materials, to managing our participant data base, to setting up the virtual classrooms, she does it all!

What’s your favourite training quote? 

“Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.”

Alexander Graham Bell