Susan K. Conner (Tri-Chair 2008-2010)

Ms. Conner holds a J.D. from West Virginia University College of Law and currently resides in Charleston, WV. She is an ACR practitioner member of the Workplace and Spirituality Sections. Her mediation experience includes working with the US Postal Service REDRESS program, Health Care Resolutions and the West Virginia Human Rights Commission as well as for the WV Supreme Court of Appeals in Worker’s Compensation and the WV Federal and Circuit Counts.

Ms. Conner has been actively involved with the WV State Bar’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee. She also served on the WV Alternate Dispute Resolution Commission. She has given numerous presentations on the topic of mediation.

In a wide range of public service, Ms. Conner has served as counsel to several committees of the West Virginia Senate and House of Delegates, including committees on Pensions and Retirement. She has served as counsel, administrative hearing examiner, mediator, and consultant to several state agencies, including the Division of Labor, Workers Compensation, and the State Police Grievance System. She also provides legal, legislative, and political consulting to individuals. Ms. Conner has an extensive background in community volunteerism and leadership. Her knowledge and experience of lobbying and working with legislative issues among key stakeholder groups will bring a unique skill set to the Workplace Section leadership.

Ms. Conner indicates that as a leader for the Workplace Section she will actively support “the future of workplace engineering” that is the active promotion of internal conflict resolution processes supporting organizational and cultural change.

Julie Denny (Tri-Chair, 2009-2011)

Julie is an Advanced Practitioner member of the Association for Conflict Resolution in the Workplace and in the Family Section. She is a member of the EEOC mediation panel, a trained US Postal Service mediator, an ADA mediator, working with the KeyBridge Foundation and the Department of Justice, and a Transportation Security Administration mediator. She has been featured in Court-TV, Bloomberg Network and NY-1 segments on mediation and conflict resolution. Julie has also been interviewed on a number of radio talk shows and has published several articles on mediation and conflict resolution. Her reviews of mediation and conflict resolution books appear regular in Library Journal.

Julie, a graduate of Mount Holyoke College, received her mediation training from Divorce Mediation Training Associates in Cambridge, MA, the Dutchess County, NY Mediation Center, the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, the KeyBridge Foundation and the United States Postal Service REDRESS program. Julie is an Associate of the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation. Before joining the dispute resolution world, Denny spent ten years in the theater and a number of years in the business sector.

David Stiteler (Tri-Chair, 2009-2011)

David is a full-time labor and employment arbitrator. He is an ACR Workplace Section Advanced Practitioner. He has a J.D. and B.A., both from the University of Wyoming. After graduating from law school with an interest in a labor law career, David left the high deserts of Wyoming for the more fertile labor relations climate of Montana. He went to work as the State of Montana’s labor attorney, representing various state agencies in a variety of legal proceedings under Montana’s then-new public employee collective bargaining law. After several years as a management attorney, he switched sides and took a job as the staff attorney for Montana’s largest public employee union. In 1992, David moved to Oregon to take a job as an administrative law judge for Oregon’s Employment Relations Board. After four years as an ALJ, the governor appointed him as a board member, where he authored or co-authored hundreds of decisions on labor relations matters. He served two terms before deciding to term-limit himself in 2003. He has been enjoying life as an arbitrator ever since, and is on arbitration panels administered by the American Arbitration Association, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, and most western states, as well as several permanent contract panels. When time permits, he likes to climb mountains.

Immediate Past Tri-Chair

Vicki Knudsen, J.D. (Tri Chair 2008-2009)

Vicki is a labor mediator/trainer for the Montana Board of Personnel Appeals where she works with the unionized public sector primarily as a mediator for Collective Bargaining Agreements and workplace grievances; training for and facilitation of Interest Based Problem Solving for bargaining and labor management committees; investigation of unfair labor practice charges, unit determinations and unit clarifications; and is coordinator of the Montana Arbitration and Labor Relations Conference. www.mtlaborrelationsconf.com??During her 16 years in the legal arena, Vicki did extensive court-based and family mediation as a county attorney and in private practice, and is designated a qualified family mediator by the Montana Mediation Association. She also dealt with the Freemen during her tenure as county attorney, and as a result assisted in drafting legislation and testified before House and Senate Committees. Vicki has participated in course development and instruction as an adjunct professor in both labor and family conflict resolution courses at Montana State University-Billings.??Vicki is a Workplace Section Advanced Practitioner, is the Workplace Section Communication Core Committee Chair and serves on the ACR Conference Planning Committee at the request of the Workplace Section.