June 2015 Chapter Meeting

June Chapter Meeting

NAPO2015 Conference Round Table Recap

Ever wonder how your NAPO2015 Conference experience compares to those of your peers?   

Join us for an informative Round Table discussion of how the NAPO2015 Conference benefited five of our veteran NAPO-LA organizers!  

Sara Getzkin, Hands On Organizing; Mishele Vieira, CPO, Away With Chaos; Deborah Kawashima, CPO, Creative Organizer; Leslie Haber, An Organized Life and one of our wonderful NAPO founders, Ann Gambrell, will be talking about favorite classes, the Expo, CPO benefits and more!

Ann Gambrell is a professional organizational consultant, helping busy people with their organizational challenges since 1985.  She motivates audiences with her special brand of whit and sensitivity.  They feel an immediate rapport with Ann as she inspires them with her sense of humor and unique organizational methods and techniques. Ann is the originator/owner of Creative Time-Plus, and conducts seminars, workshops and classes throughout the country.  As an instructor in the adult school systems since 1985 she teaches classes on Paper Management, Clutter Control, Home Organizing, Time Management and more. As a speaker she presents programs to educational, social, charitable and medical groups and agencies.  Her programs are educational and entertaining, as she presents organizing as a means to a comfortable and less stress lifestyle. She facilitates Clutter Support Groups assisting clients with their individual clutter challenges in a personal and supportive forum. She writes articles and contributes to newspapers, magazines and Ezines, and Internet services nationally. As a columnist for the Copley Press newspaper, the Daily Breeze, in Torrance, California for 4 years she wrote a weekly organizing column: “Getting Organized”. Ann has received publicity in numerous periodicals and has been a featured guest on national television. Ann is a founder and active member of the Los Angeles Chapter of the National Association Of Professional Organizers, established in 1985. Contact Ann Gambrell at (310) 212-0917 or gambrellann@aol.com

Sara Getzkin is the owner of Hands On Organizing Services based in Toluca Lake. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she has a B.A. in Sociology from the University of California at Santa Barbara. For more than a decade, Sara was gainfully employed by the entertainment industry, where she worked on numerous award-winning feature films, television shows, and animation projects. When organizing her files became more interesting than some of the movies being produced, it was only natural for her to organize full-time. She has been organizing for as long as she can remember, but officially began her professional organizing business in 2003.

Sara is a Golden Circle member of NAPO and serves as the Los Angeles NAPO chapter photographer, as well as the New Member Orientation Coordinator. In 2014, she presented a POLA class on emergency preparedness and how to incorporate that knowledge into organizing businesses.

Often referred to by fellow organizers as the resident “recycling queen,” Sara received the 2010 GREEN AWARD at the Los Angeles Organizing Awards gala for the most eco-friendly organizing service. She loves to share tips on the “4 R’s” – Recycling, Reducing, Repurposing, and Refusing. Her business focus is primarily residential organizing with an emphasis on the retired (seniors), hoarding, relocation services, financial organizing, and the organization of small, home-based businesses. 

Sara has filmed several episodes of TLC’s Hoarding: Buried Alive and serves as their LA-based Professional Organizer. Her organizing tips have been featured in The Daily News, Senior Planet, and USA Today Weekend. 

The skills and talents developed from her corporate background were used to launch her professional organizing business, with the goal of empowering individuals and companies by designing functional spaces and systems free from clutter and chaos. Mishele works with her clients to determine what challenges they face in getting and staying organized. Getting to the root of the challenge without judgment, she helps clients release and reduce the “stuff” that often overwhelms them. 

Validating each individual’s or company’s style, she partners with clients to develop solutions that work and can be easily maintained. Focusing on each individual’s unique abilities, she coaches clients in maximizing their productivity achieving their goals and doing what matters most. 

A graduate of UC Santa Barbara as a Communications Major, Mishele is an active member of NAPO San Diego and Los Angeles. She co-chaired the Southern California Winter Conference. In May 2007 Mishele became one of the first in history to receive the official Certified Professional Organizer (CPO®) designation in its inaugural year. She has designed and developed a workshop, Managing Chaos, to teach her clients how to create a plan to keep chaos from seeping back into their space, schedule, and life. 

Deborah Kawashima, founder of creativeOrganizer, comes from a creative background, adding a fresh point of view as an organizing consultant. She resides in LA with her husband, their two boys and pet cats, maintaining a healthy work–life balance.

Deborah is the oldest of five siblings from a close-knit italian-irish family, and she understands the dynamics of growing up in a large family, sharing spaces, and living with each other’s “stuff.” Her parents owned Montessori Schools, and this natural sense of order influences her approach to organizing.

Deborah’s many moves throughout her lifetime have given her an uncanny flexibility to adapt to change and take the stress out of moving! Her adaptability translates into creating new visions for your existing space, transforming it into a place that flows with you. Downsizing became a way of life for Deborah, and she is sensitive to the process, motivating clients to get rid of stuff when their life is in that in-between transition stage: new baby, moving, or when a family member dies.

An extensive world traveler for both business and pleasure, Deborah knows how to live out of a suitcase and prepares clients to be ready for travel, anytime, anywhere. She has worked on the creative end of the corporate world, as a fashion designer in New York, Hong Kong, and Los Angeles. She has designed children’s wear for brand-name lines and private labels for major companies such as Federated, May Co, JC Penny, Dillards, Belks, and Target. An Account Executive for Colby International, one of Hong Kong’s largest agents for the garment industry, Deborah oversaw production throughout Asia and acted as a liaison between buyers, manufacturers and factories, troubleshooting on a daily basis.

Deborah transfers her design skills from fashion to organizing products. Currently she is in development of a children's organizing product line, and she writes organizing articles for her local papers and professional associations. She is also a published children’s book author for a Chapter book series based on the upcoming PBS kids series DangerRangers. When not organizing, she writes children’s books and runs a children’s book club.

After a client’s’ psychologist coined Leslie Haber "The Organizational Therapist®,” she trademarked the term to further brand her unique and holistic approach to working with and coaching clients: Organizational Therapy®. Organizational Therapy® involves a completely holistic approach to determining the roots of disorganization and takes into consideration one's environment, family (and/or household) dynamics, PTSD, or other emotional issues along with a number of other factors. By acknowledging the basis of disorganization, clients can reach a better understanding of their behaviors and the core reasons behind (often) life-long habits that create stagnation, fear, confusion, apathy, and often depression.

Leslie's distinct and empathetic brand of healing involves cognitive behavior therapy, kinesthetic behavior exercises, and positive reinforcement. She often works in tandem with clients' therapists to form a "team" to support her clients' goals and well-being.

Leslie currently serves as the President of the National Association of Professional Organizers - Los Angeles Chapter.