• Guest House

  • Retreat and Conference Center

  • 318 West Main Street
    Chester, Connecticut 06412
    (860) 322-5770

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  • General Information

  • Phone (860) 322-5770
    Fax (860) 322-5744

    If you would like to hold your event at Guest House or for general information, please contact us at Info@GuestHouseCenter.org

    Staff

  • Steve Kennedy
    Executive Director
    Steve@GuestHouseCenter.org

    Rhonda Nutile
    Business Operations Director
    Rhonda@GuestHouseCenter.org

    Jim Emswiler
    Sales Manager
    Jim@GuestHouseCenter.org

    Marianne Hile
    Retreat Services Manager
    Marianne@GuestHouseCenter.org

    Michael Levien
    Program Coordinator & Sales
    Michael@GuestHouseCenter.org

    Laura Way
    Head of Housekeeping
    Laura@GuestHouseCenter.org

    Steve Matterazzo
    Executive Chef
    Chef@GuestHouseCenter.org

    William Galvin
    Maintenance Manager

  • Ten Directions Board Members

    Laurie Leonard, Chair
    Jill Berman, Vice-Chair
    Cory Greenberg, Treasurer
    Jerry O’Halloran, Secretary
    Jorge Arango
    Jane Bronson
    Leah (Leslie) Chyten
    Nancy Closs
    Adam Fuller
    Tom Gibbons
    Waltraud Ireland
    Bonalyn Mosteller
    Marlene Reisman
    David Schulz
    Josie Sentner
    Don Shaw
    Sarah Tremaine
    Susan Weiley
    Laura Wells
    Malcolm Winkley

    Laurie Leonard, Chair, was for ten years the President and General Manager of an NBC-affiliated television station that won many national awards for its news, programming and marketing. She has an MBA with honors from the Harvard Business School. Laurie has served on the board of directors of many organizations, including a bank, a library, a chamber of commerce, a tourism bureau, and a crisis hotline. She was Vice-President of Public Relations for United Way in Wisconsin and served as Treasurer of a large co-op building in New York City. Currently a licensed social worker specializing in death, dying, and bereavement, Laurie has been a Diamond Approach student since 2000.

    Jill Berman, Vice-Chair, served in the NYC school system in positions ranging from high school social studies teacher to the supervisor/administrator of an alternative high school. More recently she worked with the Bank Street College of Education Leadership Center as a Facilitator/ Consultant. As an Advisor in the college’s Principals Institute Jill facilitated the professional growth of aspiring school leaders. Holding an Ed. D. from Teachers College in Educational Administration, she is a past president of the National Council of Administrative Women in Education and of its NYC chapter. She also was on the Allocations Committee of the New York Women’s Foundation. Jill has been a Diamond Approach student since 2000.

    Cory Greenberg, Treasurer, Finance Committee Chair, is a financial and management consultant to small businesses and serves as part-time CFO to one of those businesses. He has been Treasurer and partner in several movie theaters in the New York metropolitan area, and was the CFO of a small publicly traded natural foods company. Cory is President and a founding board member of the Cooperative Capital Fund of New England, is Loan Committee Chairperson, board member (since 1992) and former Treasurer of the Cooperative Fund of New England, and is on the advisory board of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society. Cory has been a student of the Diamond Approach since 2003.

    Jerry O’Halloran, Secretary, is a Managing Partner of OFI, a Rhode Island company involved in a variety of domestic and international investment projects. He also directs the O’Halloran Family Foundation, which invests in not for profit organizations, with a special interest in groups that work at the intersection of education, the arts and social change. Jerry has loved music and theatre all his life; he performs with both a community theatre group and a community chorus. A Diamond Approach student since 2001, Jerry previously studied with Lama Surya Das in the Dzogchen tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.

    Jorge S. Arango, Buildings and Grounds Chair has been an interior design writer, editor and stylist for over fifteen years. He has co-authored two design books and writes regularly for many national design magazines, including Metropolitan Home, Elle Decor and Robb Report. His interests in art and design led to board work with the Craft Emergency Relief Fund, a national first-responder organization for artists who suffer career-threatening emergencies, which he chaired from 2004-2006. He continues to consult with CERF on marketing and re-branding issues. Jorge has been a student of the Diamond Approach since 2004.

    Waltraud Ireland, Governance Committee Chair has provided workshops and ongoing group practice of dialogue based on principles developed by David Bohm for the past decade. She holds a Ph.D. in history from Johns Hopkins University and has taught European history at the college level. She also holds a post-doctoral degree in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy from New York University, is a licensed psychoanalyst and has had a private psychotherapy practice for many years. She has been a student of the Diamond Approach for ten years and is an inquiry group leader.

    Josie Sentner, Resource Development Committee Chair, has been a principal and executive in the financial field in private equity, buyouts and venture capital. Most recently she has been active in microfinance, working with international networks that provide services to very poor women in Latin America, Africa and Asia. She has served on a number of not for profit boards and is currently a board member of Fonkoze, the largest microfinance institution in Haiti, AccessAfricaNOW, and member of the President’s Council of Accion International. She has been a Diamond Approach student since 2001.

    Sarah Tremaine, Program Committee Chair, has served on other nonprofit boards and participated in three startups: a private foundation, an educational foundation (The Charlottesville Waldorf Foundation), and Ten Directions. She has a PhD in Ecology and Environmental Sciences and has worked as an environmental consultant, leading a biotechnology group that designed and implemented bioremediation systems for groundwaters and soils. Sarah is a certified enneagram teacher and has taught many workshops and leadership training groups in Virginia using the enneagram. She is also a professional fiber artist. Sarah has been a Diamond Approach student since 1993, and a part of the Ridhwan Teacher Training (ITTR) since 1997.

    Jane Bronson is is a Diamond Approach teacher in the supervisory process. She works with individual students in New York City and upstate New York, where she also runs a Diamond Approach book group in Canandaigua. Although she majored in math and physics in college, Jane became fascinated by the mystical and revelatory nature of the creative process. She has worked in interior space design and exercises her love of light, form and design through her pursuits of photography, ceramics and jewelry making. Jane is also actively involved in protecting the natural resources of the Canandaigua Lake watershed. She has been a Diamond Approach student since 1992.

    Leah (Leslie) Chyten is a Diamond Approach Teacher who works with groups in New York, Boston and Toronto. She has developed and facilitated numerous workshops on topics ranging from creativity to communications. She is also a psychotherapist with a private practice in Newton, Massachusetts. She has also written two novels, and is working on a third.

    Adam Fuller is the former Executive Chef, Assistant Director and Executive Director of Guest House, and now serves as the Program Manager and member of the finance and resource development committees. He is one of the founding Board Members of Guest House, where he helped establish and teach the Meditation in the World program in 2009. Before beginning work at Guest House, Adam was an adjunct professor of journalism at New York University, teaching writing, media history, and first amendment law. He lives near Seattle with his wife and two children.

    Tom Gibbons is legal counsel for an insurance and financial services group located in Bermuda. He has a law degree from the London School of Economics and an MSW degree from NYU. He has a part-time psychotherapy practice, and has done a good deal of work for Amnesty International over the years including acting as chairperson of the Bermuda section of Amnesty. He has been a Diamond Approach student since 2001.

    Bonalyn Mosteller, Ed.D., has operated her own organizational development consulting business outside Philadelphia for over twelve years, specializing in organizational change, leadership development, strategic planning and coaching. Holding an Ed.D. degree from Temple University, she initially worked in public education and then as an internal OD consultant in healthcare organizations. In her consulting practice, Bonalyn works with both corporate clients and not-for-profits, where she specializes in board development. The study of psychology has been her passion for much of her life, and currently she serves on the boards of two behavioral health organizations. Bonalyn has been a Diamond Approach student for more than fifteen years.

    David Schulz heads the New York office of Levine, Sullivan Koch & Schulz, L.L.P., a national media law firm representing news and entertainment organizations in defamation, privacy, newsgathering, access, intellectual property and related First Amendment matters. An adjunct professor of media law at Columbia Law School, David has been defending the rights of journalists and news organizations for nearly 30 years. David is a Trustee of Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois and has served on the boards of several public and private organizations, including the Hudson Valley Greenway Conservancy and the New York Committee on Open Government. He has been a Diamond Approach student since 2001.

    Don Shaw has for twenty years been the owner and principal of Donald Shaw Interiors, Inc., an international residential design firm based in New York City. A serious pianist, he was a semi-finalist at the first Van Cliburn Amateur Competition in Fort Worth and shared the first prize at the Northeastern Classical Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs in 2002. Don graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in theatre and attended the Mannes College of Music in New York City. He has been a Diamond Approach student since 2005.

    Susan Weiley, a Diamond Approach teacher, is one of three leaders of Emerald Mountain 4, an ongoing Diamond Approach group in New York City. With a background as a photographer, writer and editor, Susan worked in the New York publishing world for thirty years, including a long stint as an editor in the publications department of The Museum of Modern Art, and as a photography journalist and critic for the magazine Art News. Today Susan regularly leads reading/inquiry groups, facilitates process groups and works with students individually. For the last twenty years she has also had an ongoing private practice in healing, hypnotherapy and spiritual counseling in New York. Susan has been a Diamond Approach student since 1994.

    Laura Wells is Vice President of Marketing & Communications with NARSAD, the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression. She has an International MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management and worked for 15 years in brand management for Fortune 500 companies prior to moving to the not-for-profit sector. In her last corporate position, she worked on the Dove global team and launched Dove body lotion into the US market with the ‘Campaign for Real Beauty’. Laura is fluent in French and German, speaks some Spanish, and volunteer teaches once a week in Harlem. She serves on her NYC Co-op Board and has been a Diamond Approach student since 2008.

  • Mal Winkley is the founder and president of Brian House and AVP Inc., a nonprofit organization that provides both residential and vocational supports to developmentally challenged adults in a variety of community based settings. He has an extensive background in the integral approach to both organizational and personal development and consults with organizations and individuals interested in an integral perspective. Early in his career Mal founded an alternative private residential school that worked with at risk teens. Mal and his wife Peggy have five children, and he has a passion for sailing, Tai Chi, and an active and ongoing practice of self exploration.

  • Mal Winkley is the founder and president of Brian House and AVP Inc., a nonprofit organization that provides both residential and vocational supports to developmentally challenged adults in a variety of community based settings. He has an extensive background in the integral approach to both organizational and personal development and consults with organizations and individuals interested in an integral perspective. Early in his career Mal founded an alternative private residential school that worked with at risk teens. Mal and his wife Peggy have five children, and he has a passion for sailing, Tai Chi, and an active and ongoing practice of self exploration.