Michael is a speaker, trainer, mentor and consultant. He works with leaders to elevate their thinking skills and with sales and marketing organizations to develop higher value customer relationships. His firm, The Claymore Group, serves as a platform for these activities as well as his Thinking Like a Leader program.

Previously, Michael was the founding partner of Innovation Architects, an organizational consultancy with partners in four states, whose focus was on breaking marketing constraints and strategic staff and process development.

Prior to starting The Claymore Group in 2006 and Innovation Architects in 2002, Michael held the position of Chancellor of the C-bridge Institute, which he had co-founded on the MIT campus.

At the Institute Michael led over fifty professionals as they taught thousands of executives the technologies, methodologies and leadership skills needed to succeed in rapidly changing business environments.

The Institute also brought notoriety to its parent company with Forrester ranking the 700 person C-bridge Internet Solutions ahead of far larger competitors such as IBM and Accenture saying “The firm is a poster child for great training - demonstrated by its educational seminars and the skills transfer built into engagements...”

Michael also developed the Institute’s Educational Program Assessment and taught courses focused on strategic planning, constraints management and leadership skills.

Michael has personally trained or consulted with organizations such as Agilent, British Telecom, Brush Wellman, Carl Freeman, Chevron, Coleman Natural Foods, Countrywide Mortgage, Dex Media, MEMC, Orcon Aerospace, Seagate, Thomson Financial, TRW, the United Way and the Washington State Department of Transportation.

He has spoken at numerous domestic and international events on the topics of leadership, innovation and demand creation. His strategic marketing and transformative sales work with Nokia Mobile Phones is used as a case study in numerous executive MBA programs.

He previously held positions with global responsibility for sales and marketing for three international companies. In each he was challenged with building or re-building the salesforce and sales representative organizations – the resulting worst one year revenue growth improvement over those twelve years was 39.5%.

Michael has also worked in manufacturing management and in product and program engineering.

Michael has undergraduate degrees in literature and physics and a master's in experimental physics. He is certified by both the TOC-ICO and the Goldratt Institute as a master instructor of thinking processes and strategic marketing.

He is a member of ASTD and CollegeAmerica’s adjunct faculty and its advisory board.

Michael lives in the foothills of the Colorado Rockies with his gorgeous wife Stephanie (a controls engineer and Krav Maga expert) and their incredibly smart and beautiful daughter Kelly.