Meet The Ascent Team
Terri Wilber, CHt
Conflict Resolution Specialist & Fractional Chief Mindset Officer.
Founder & CEO of Ascent Training & Consulting, LLC
Terri Wilber is a seasoned expert in human behavior, communication, and high-stakes conflict resolution — uniquely positioned at the intersection of neuroscience, strategic facilitation, and organizational effectiveness. With board certifications as a Trainer and Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), as well as mastery in mental and emotional release and hypnotherapy, Terri brings an evidence-based and results-oriented approach to complex interpersonal and organizational challenges.
Before building Ascent Training & Consulting, Terri served as a 911 dispatcher — a role that required real-time crisis assessment, emotional containment, and precise communication under pressure. This foundational experience honed her ability to remain neutral, regulate high-intensity interactions, and extract critical insights in moments of uncertainty — qualities that now anchor her conflict facilitation work with leaders and teams in corporate and organizational environments.
As Fractional Chief Mindset Officer, Terri works with executive teams to strengthen organizational health by aligning leadership paradigms with strategic outcomes. She partners with organizational leadership to uncover unconscious patterns, mitigate escalation, and redesign communication systems that support robust decision-making and long-term performance. Her work moves beyond surface-level negotiation to address underlying beliefs, relational dynamics, and systemic patterns — enabling sustainable solutions preserving trust, accountability, and equity.
Terri’s methodology draws on advanced NLP, behavioral neuroscience, and structured mediation frameworks to reduce friction, de-escalate polarized narratives, and co-create outcomes that are ecologically viable for all parties involved. She is known for her ability to hold space with impartiality, guide divergent perspectives to shared clarity, and translate human complexity into practical action.
In addition to her corporate consulting and conflict resolution work, Terri is respected nationally for her communication training and leadership development programs, which empower individuals and teams to rewire limiting patterns and elevate performance. Based in he Colorado foothills, she leads Ascent with a commitment to integrity, psychological safety, and results that endure.
Gabriella Richardson
Director of Strategic Integration,
Transformational Coach
Gabriella “Gabby” Richardson is an Organizational Strategist and Executive Systems Integrator who helps leaders and companies align their people, structures, and culture to unlock clarity, execution, and high-performance collaboration.
Gabby brings a rare integration of neuroscience, leadership strategy, and organizational systems thinking, equipping her to work at the intersection where human dynamics, communication patterns, and organizational design meet. She specializes in revealing hidden organizational patterns that create friction, building clarity-centered structures that eliminate ambiguity, and aligning leaders and systems so collaboration becomes durable—not momentary.
Her approach blends deep human insight with operational rigor. Gabby connects how people behave to the systems that shape—and sometimes constrain—their success. Leaders and teams working with her don’t just resolve immediate issues; they embed the mindsets, agreements, and decision flows that protect alignment and performance long after the engagement ends.
Gabby also expands impact through story. As host and producer of Nexus of Narratives, she curates conversations that bridge differences, deepen empathy, and remind audiences of the threads of humanity that connect us. The project sparks dialogue that challenges assumptions and builds community across lived experience, culture, and identity.
Gabby earned her B.S. in Neuroscience and M.S. in Organizational Leadership, with specialized graduate studies in Strategic Innovation & Change and Advancing Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in Organizations. This academic foundation, combined with field experience, enables her to translate complexity into clarity and guide individuals and systems through meaningful change.
Whether she’s engineering structures that remove ambiguity, facilitating breakthrough conversations between leaders, or amplifying stories that challenge assumptions and inspire connection, Gabby’s mission remains constant:
to support people and organizations in stepping into their highest expression—with clarity, alignment, and shared purpose.
Gabby is happily married to the love of her life and their home is buzzing with their daughter, two dogs, and MANY houseplants.
Sean Marshall
Trainer & Transformational Coach
Discovering Truth has been Sean’s guiding force since 1998, when his first personal-development class sparked a lifelong curiosity about what shapes human behavior. Nearly three decades, countless trainings, and many life lessons later, his purpose has become clear: helping people recognize their inner light and reconnect with the direction their soul already knows.
Sean believes purpose isn’t a heavy commitment—it’s an inner alignment. We all drift at times, and that drifting is part of the journey. What matters is pausing long enough to look up from the noise of life and reconnect with the intuitive force that has always been within us.
As a certified Integrative NLP Coach, Sean bridges neuroscience with the more esoteric paths of self-discovery. He works with both the conscious and unconscious mind, drawing from NLP, Jungian psychology, Huna, and Astrology to help clients uncover what’s true for them. This integrated approach consistently leads to deeper fulfillment in career, relationships, and overall wellbeing.
Sean is a loving husband and father to two adult children. He enjoys travel, golf, and lifelong learning.
Sam Schuemake
Engagement Concierge
Sam loves understanding the unique attributes that make up people and organizations alike.
She coaches clients from theory to practice as they inhabit the life they were meant to live. Most people are living out patterns in behaviors they never consciously chose. Sam helps them hit update. She is fascinated by how the unconscious mind creates our problems—and how, with the right tools, it can just as easily build the solution. She is a Master Practitioner of iNLP, MERⓇ, and hypnotherapy. Each aids her in helping clients create change at the root.
Outside of coaching, Sam is a ceramic artist, an undergraduate student of Entrepreneurial Studies, and the Engagement Concierge here at Ascent. She is passionate about helping people create their powerful impact in the world. This makes her a chameleon in the workplace as she hops from detail-oriented work to big picture thinking. She enjoys all aspects of transforming ideas into reality.
Rather than devoted expertise in any one discipline, Sam’s superpower is exploring truths across disciplines. Central to her outlook is the belief in the massive power of humans to heal, create, and innovate. Each of her roles enhances others’ ability to leverage this power professionally, personally, and creatively.
Sam enjoys cooking, gardening, hiking, dancing, poetry, and almost any art form under the sun.
