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Founder and President, The Curtis Group Prior to founding The Curtis Group, Richard (“Dick”) Heil served the state of Pennsylvania as the first director of personnel for the Department of Aging, director of employee relations and development, and director of personnel for the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare — one of the largest public organizations in the country with over 23,000 full-time and 2,400 part-time employees. Heil has conducted the Developing Competencies for HR Success course on behalf of IPMA-HR for a number of international entities, including the Asian Development Bank and Iraqi Ministries of Interior and Defense, as well as the Peoples’ Republic of China and the government of Thailand. He is also the co-writer and developer of IPMA-HR's Public Sector HR Essentials course. In recognition of his “outstanding contributions to the Association and to the public human resources profession,” Heil was awarded an Honorary Lifetime Membership from IPMA-HR. He holds a Master of Governmental Administration from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as IPMA-CP certification.

Director, Institute for Public Sector Employee Engagement, CPS HR Consulting Bob Lavigna is an award-winning public sector leader and innovator with more than 30 years of experience leading human resources organizations and programs in the public sector. He is currently the director of the Institute for Public Sector Employee Engagement, a division of CPS HR Services, an independent government agency. The Institute is dedicated to helping public sector and nonprofit organizations measure and improve employee engagement as a key to improving service delivery. Lavigna's book, "Engaging Government Employees: Motivate and Inspire Your People to Achieve Superior Performance," published by the American Management Association and now in its second printing, is the first book to focus exclusively on employee engagement in the public sector. Before joining CPS, Lavigna was assistant vice chancellor and director of HR for the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In this position, he directred HR policies and programs for a university ranked amoung the world's top 25 research institutions. Other previous positions include vice president of research for the Partnership for Public Service and director of the state of Wisconsin civil service system. He began his career with the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Lavigna is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. His individual awards and honors also include selection as a Public Official of the Year by Governing magazine, as well as the highest individual achievement awards from both IPMA-HR and the National Association of State Personnel Executives (NASPE). In addition, the organizations Lavigna has led have received innovation awards from the Ford Foundation, IPMA-HR, NASPE, Council of State Governments, Urban League, Society of Human Resouce Management and others. Lavigna is a past national president of IPMA-HR and past national chair of the American Society for Public Administration Section on Personnel and Labor Relations. In addition to his book, he writes frequently for professional publications and is the author of three book chapters on HR. He has spoken at conferences throughout the U.S. and in Canada, Europe, Asia, South America, the Caribbean, Africa, and the Middle East. Lavigna has a bachelor's in Public Affairs from George Washington University, and a master's in human resources from Cornell University.