The Bearfence Story
"It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves."
Sir Edmund Hillary
The Metaphor
Our firm is named after the Bearfence Mountain rock scramble along the Appalachian Trail in central Virginia. It’s a short, but deceptively challenging climb culminating in spectacular views of the surrounding valleys. Like life, Bearfence makes apparent the need to push ourselves in new directions to enable progress. It forces us to question how we’ve done things in the past, and how well our current approaches serve us. The metaphor alludes to our corporate ethos— Find Strength Within. If we muster the courage to step out of our comfort zones, we can easily gain new perspectives and discover our inner strengths.
In Native American cultures, the bear represents strength, wisdom, and healing. These pillars represent our charge in helping organizations find and leverage their unique strengths to perform at the highest levels. As organizations communicate better and develop high levels of trust, a healing occurs. The fence is symbolic of one’s surroundings—or the limit of their current perspective. Bearfence’s proven leadership solutions help organizations shatter limitations and unleash innate talents.
Founder
Bearfence’s founder & President is Dave Brunelle—a forward-thinking, action-oriented polymath with an impeccable record of building teams, challenging processes, effecting change, and empowering workforces. For over 25 years he’s led teams in the United States Marine Corps, defense contracting, private sector financial services, the Federal Government, and numerous civic organizations. Every organization Dave led benefited from dramatic increases in accountability, efficiency, retention, and organizational health.
After years of training & Coaching leaders, Dave became increasingly compelled to aid the human condition and awaken spirit within others. His commitment to personal self-improvement and leveraging a proven formula of cutting-edge tools led to his vision of a leadership solutions firm that helps individuals and organizations find strength within.
Dave holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree in Management with undergrad studies in Psychology. He attained the following credentials & certifications: Department of Defense (DoD) Certified Instructor; ICF Associate Certified Coach; Performance & Leadership / Executive Coach; Certified Team Coach; Federal Internal Coach Training Program (FICTP) Faculty Member; Myers Briggs Type Indicator Instructor; DiSC© Behavioral Assessment Instructor; Leadership Challenge Workshop© Facilitator; Mediator & Conflict Resolution Trainer; Franklin Covey Instructor; Tetramap© Instructor; DoD Contracting Officer’s Representative; DoD All-Source Analyst; New York State Life, Accident & Health Insurance license; Securities Agent Licenses Series 6 & 63.
Dave is proudest of the following recognitions: The Defense Intelligence Agency’s Meritorious Civilian Service Award; MetLife’s Leader’s Conference honor award; the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal; the Civilian Global War on Terrorism Medal; Past Master, John Blair Lodge No. 187 A.F. & A.M.; District Deputy Grand Master, VA Masonic District 7; Eagle Scout, Boy Scouts of America; PADI’s Divemaster & Master Scuba Diver ratings. In his free time, Dave is an avid reader, traveler, Freemason, musician, and electrician.
Associates
Our Principle-level Associates include:
Kristine Campbell, MBA, MPH, ACC
Kristine is a Career, Leadership, and Performance Coach, and the founder of Coaching Strong, LLC. Across her 22-year career serving national non-profit and federal organizations, Kristine has established vision and strategy, driven change, and rallied large multi-faceted teams to achieve success. Kristine is proud to be a trusted Coach and Facilitator for Bearfence Leadership Solutions, while also serving The Muse, the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, MSBCoach, and numerous individual clients across technology, retail, e-commerce, healthcare, legal services, and non-profit sectors. Kristine holds a Master of Public Health from The George Washington University, a Graduate Certificate in Leadership and Management from the National Intelligence University, and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business.
While at Darden, Kristine concentrated her studies on leadership and change management, and served as the first President of the Darden Network of Executive Women. Kristine holds the following professional certifications: an International Coaching Federation Associate Coaching Credential (ACC), Leadership and Performance Coach and Team Coach Certifications from ACT Leadership LLC, Instructor and Facilitator Certifications from the US Department of Defense, TetraMap Facilitator Certification from TetraMap US, Career Leader Assessment License from Career Leader LLP, and Certified Mindset Index Practitioner Certification from AIIR Consulting. In her free time, Kristine enjoys playing basketball and traveling with her family.
John Lindegren
John is the founder of Wanderweg Leadership Solutions, LLC. He continuously strives to improve himself and the teams he serves, leveraging a creative, process-oriented, and enterprise-minded approach. For over 30 years he’s led dynamic teams in the United States Army, defense contracting, and federal government. John has a BA in International Security from the University of Denver, and an MS in Strategic Intelligence from the National Intelligence University. Certification he holds include: Department of Defense (DoD) Instructor, Performance and Leadership/Executive Coach, and the Leadership Challenge Workshop© Facilitator.
John spends a lot of time volunteering with Scouting America where he serves as a mentor and adviser to both youth and adults. Among the many roles he fills, he organizes and facilitates a variety of training, including Wood Badge – a leadership course utilizing experiential learning to teach and apply leadership principles in an outdoor environment. John is also the owner of Roasted Provisions Coffee Company, LLC. John loves a great cup of coffee and believes sharing a cup around the campfire or conference room table provides an opportunity to build relationships, have authentic discussions, and grow as individuals…all part of improving leadership and team development. John loves spending time with his family and being outdoors.
Strategic Alliances