How CultureMD Came To Be...

Greg McDonald and Jim Swoboda were colleagues in the food industry for over 20 years. Though Greg was on the sales side of the business and Jim was on the purchasing side, their mutual love for people, and passion about culture in the workplace was a common element that drew them together.

In 2000, Greg and Jim had the opportunity to work together as partners for six years at Acosta Sales and Marketing, where over 50 organizations from across North America were acquired and merged together. It was here they were able to jointly put into practice their beliefs about creating a "best in class" corporate culture.

While in their forties, both Jim and Greg retired from the food industry. Shortly there after they formed CultureMD with the vision "to be positively, the best boutique culture-consulting firm, period." Their goal was to help organizations create and maintain a people-first, values-based culture where people enjoy what they do and who they do it with, ultimately creating a better and more sustainable bottom-line.

A year after CultureMD was formed, Greg and Jim were introduced to Mike and Heather Suchowski through common friends. Mike and Heather were attorneys practicing in employment and family litigation. Each of them had grown exceedingly frustrated with the legal system's inability to efficiently and effectively deal with conflict. They decided to forge a new path and use their legal backgrounds to help restore relationships, rather than tear them apart. They created Cooper James Consulting, which was a consulting practice dedicated to helping employers create collaborative cultures, where conflict is dealt with early to avoid legal problems down the road and employees are encouraged to work together at their maximum potential, according to their unique gifts. When Greg, Jim, Heather and Mike sat down to share their vision and goals, they discovered they were identical, and thus decided to join forces.

Once this happened, the foursome turned to Beighley/VanTill Consulting to provide personality profile assessments for the four partners, to ensure the right people were in the "right seats on the bus." Dr. David Beighley and MaryBeth VanTill share a common vision for helping people understand who they are in the workplace setting and how a team can best be assembled to fully utilize the gifts of all people involved. David and MaryBeth conducted the assessments using the powerful Inscape Publishing Assessment tools. They explained the Inscape results and provided valuable insights that helped the four new teammates develop a deeper understanding of themselves and their relationships. Their assessments of the newly formed team left David and MaryBeth completely energized about CultureMD and the near perfect fit of complimentary skills between themselves and Greg, Jim, Heather and Mike. In fact, David and MaryBeth were so impressed, they made a proposal to join CultureMD.

In January 2008, the six became partners in CultureMD. Their mission is to help organizations create and maintain a people-first, values-based culture, using each members' unique abilities and passions, resulting in better people, a better company, and a better world.