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In this show, Richard Fletcher and Doug Samuels will discuss what’s new in the programming offered by the Greater Atlanta Chapter of ASTD this year, along with what is staying the same.

Richard Fletcher/Zaxby’s

Richard Fletcher, CHT is Sr. Director, Learning and Organizational Development for Zaxby’s Franchising, a franchisor of gourmet chicken restaurants with 550+ locations and 20,000 employees throughout the Southeast. He has been with Zaxby’s since 2003. Richard has responsibilities for overseeing the structures, systems, and processes within the organization to improve organizational effectiveness and is also responsible for identifying, recommending and implementing short and long term strategy for design development and delivery of leadership, team-related, professional, and interpersonal skills development programs.

Richard has over 25 years of executive level experience in sales, operations, organizational development and training with other national companies such as Wolf Camera, Zaxby’s and Sprint PCS.

Richard is a national member of ASTD and President-Elect for the Greater Atlanta chapter. He is an active member of the Council for Hotel and Restaurant Trainers (CHART) and Regional Director for the CHART’s Atlanta Regional Training Forum.

Richard received a Bachelor of Science degree from Auburn University. He is a certified EQ-I, EQ-360 administrator and has received the Certified Hospitality Trainer (CHT) certification from CHART. When he isn’t busy developing people, he loves hitting the links and traveling.

Doug Samuels/Georgia State University

Doug Samuels is Manager, Organizational Development & Consulting Services at Georgia State University in Atlanta, GA. His focus is on developing leadership bench strength and improving employee engagement throughout the university and across the University System of Georgia (USG). He uses the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence as a process framework.

Doug’s professional career in learning and development has taken him around the world. After flying KC- 135s (Boeing 707) for many years, he served as a Master Instructor at the USAF’s Navigator Training School and later created and delivered the military’s first software engineering training program. He was selected to direct the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Ada Software Engineering Education and Training Program, created to ensure the Ada programming language was used in all mission-critical software development across the military. He received the DOD Meritorious Service Medal for his efforts.

Previously, Doug served as the Director, Training and Development in a Fortune 50 company and Director, Organization Development at a burgeoning Fortune 1000 company. He holds a BS in Mathematics from Valdosta State College, a BS in Computer Science from Chapman University, an MEd in Adult Education from the University of Southern Mississippi, a BA in Psychology and MS in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Valdosta State University.

 

 

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