SBP

Meet Susan Bender Phelps

Susan Bender Phelps delivers engaging and inspiring training programs and workshops.  Susan speaks for corporate, association, and college audiences throughout the U.S. and Canada. She is the Lead Trainer, Primary Coach, and CEO of Odyssey Mentoring & Leadership.

Does every one of your people show up for work ready to make a positive contribution? If you can’t answer with a resounding, “YES!” talk to Susan today!

She works with small and medium-size companies and non-profits to improve communication and change workplace culture so that employees are more productive and the staff willingly uses every opportunity to grow, develop, and cause breakthroughs.

Susan has 30+ years of experience working with leaders at all levels of organizations in many industries, including federal, state and local government, colleges, universities, small and medium-size companies and not-for-profit organizations.

Industries include healthcare, parks and recreation, advertising, accounting, scientists, physicists, architects, consulting engineers, construction, unions, and clergy.

Susan got her start as a trainer and speaker when she co-founded a non-profit that offered transformational mentoring programs for at-risk middle school students in the early 1990s. This work was her passion.  As Executive Director of the New Mexico Youth at Risk Foundation, Susan led an all-volunteer organization, worked hand-in-hand with the Board of Directors, trained hundreds of volunteer mentors to work with teens, and mastered non-profit fundraising and grant writing. In all, Susan has served as Executive Director of two benefit non-profits and one grant-making foundation. She served on the board of a national foundation for five years and is currently on the steering committee for an Oregon non-profit dedicated to making out of school time programs more affordable. Susan also served a fundraiser for three non-profits.

This background paved the way for her to launch Odyssey Mentoring & Leadership in 2009. Susan brings her first-hand knowledge and experience of the power of effective communication and leadership to her work as a trainer, speaker, and presentation coach.Susan speaks nationally on leadership, communication and mentoring. She is the author of Aspire Higher, a collection of true success stories of career and business mentoring. She has a bachelor’s degree in Communication and a master’s in Management & Organizational Leadership. She is a certified SCUBA diver and loves to travel the world. She lives in the Portland, OR metro area with her husband and yellow Labrador retriever.

Odyssey Mentoring clients include:

  • Capital Equipment Leasing
  • Chemeketa Community College
  • Arlene Cogen, LLC
  • Lawrence Livermore Laboratory
  • Lions Clubs
  • Maine Association of Healthcare Administrators
  • McDonald Jacobs Accounting & Consulting
  • Portland Community College
  • Portland General Electric
  • Oregon Association of School Financial
  • Aid Administrators
  • Sandia National Laboratories
  • Sistah Sistah Youth Mentoring Program
  • The Water Oasis – Wedding & Event Planners
  • Women at Intel – Rio Rancho
  • Unity Church of West Linn
  • Unlocking Futures Youth Mentoring Programs
  • People First

Susan commits a quarter of her time to volunteer service.  She has served on a number of boards and committees and contributed significantly to the following organizations:

  • Washington County Kids
  • Toastmasters for Speaking Professionals
  • Warner Pacific University Transfer Student Mentoring Program