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The Bearfence Story

 

Bearfence Mountain, Charlottesville Virginia Leadership Training, Central Virginia Coaching

"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 over unique rock formations culminating in spectacular views of the surrounding valleys. Like life, the Bearfence rock scramble challenges us each in our own way and 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. It also teaches us that if we muster the courage to step into uncomfortable situations, we can easily reach new heights, gain new perspectives, and find the unique strengths within each of us as complete and resourceful individuals.

The metaphor further alludes to our corporate ethos—to find strength within. In Native American cultures, the bear commonly represents strength, wisdom, and healing. These pillars represent our company’s 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. Through Bearfence’s proven leadership solutions, organizations quickly realize that all the strength they need to succeed is already there within—they just need a catalyst to cultivate 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, enacting efficiencies, effecting change, and empowering workforces. For over 25 years he’s led teams and organizations in the United States Marine Corps, defense contracting, private sector financial services, the federal Government, and numerous civic organizations. Every organization Dave has led benefited from dramatic increases in accountability, efficiency, retention, and organizational health.

Dave Brunelle

David Brunelle
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After years of training leaders and Coaching individuals and teams, Dave became increasingly compelled to aid the human condition and awaken spirit within others. In some sense, all humans are perfect and whole. In other ways we’re all struggling and facing incredible challenges that we keep hidden from others. Further, through preoccupations, distractions, stuck emotions, or the lack of resources, most leaders fail to reach their true potential—thereby prohibiting their organization from reaching its utmost potential. Dave’s relentless mentoring, deep listening, and open mindedness unveiled the unique strengths within each person he encountered. 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.

Associates

In lockstep with our President, our team at Bearfence is a pool of experts who we leverage to meet the unique needs of every client. Our network of Certified Coaches, experienced facilitators, talented program managers, and battle-tested leaders are here for you.

Our Principle-level Associates include:

Kristine Campbell

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John Lindegren 

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Strategic Alliances

Bearfence proudly maintains strategic alliances with Coaching Strong LLC, a Charlottesville, Virginia-based Coaching company, and with Roasted Provisions Coffee Company, whose products help support youth leadership programs.

Contact Us

Contact us to schedule a free 30-minute consultation and see how Bearfence’s customized leadership solutions will help your business find strength within. No sales pitches. No pressure. No strings attached. During the consultation, we’ll learn about your unique challenges and discuss if it makes sense for us to work together.
Dave Brunelle - Bearfence President

Dave holds an MBA in Management with undergrad studies in Psychology. He’s a Department of Defense (DoD) Certified Instructor and expert classroom facilitator. He holds the following credentials and certifications: ICF Associate Certified Coach; Performance & Leadership / Executive Coach; Team Coach; 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 a humble recipient 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.; Eagle Scout, Boy Scouts of America; PADI’s Divemaster & Master Scuba Diver ratings. In his free time, Dave is an avid reader, outdoorsman, traveler, and musician.

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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.

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John Lindegren

John is an enterprise minded visionary, constantly striving to improve himself and the teams he serves. For over 28 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 a Masters 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 is also the owner of Roasted Provisions Coffee Company, LLC. Coffee provides an opportunity to sit around the campfire or conference room table to build relationships, have authentic discussions, and grow as individuals…all supporting improved leadership and team development. A portion of Roasted Provisions’ proceeds are donated to support youth programs focused on service, leadership, character and resilience. John also spends a lot of time volunteering with the Boy Scouts of America where he serves as a mentor and adviser to both youth and adults. Among the variety of roles he fills, he 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 loves spending time with his family and being in the outdoors.

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