SWAT provides forum for execs to share solutions to business woes

A new group for northern Nevada executives seeks to provide a way for them to share business solutions with one another.

The group known as SWAT that's short for Shared Wisdom Action Team was formed by the nonprofit Center for Business Excellence in Reno.

Tom Taormina, a Reno-based consultant who spearheaded creation of the Center of Business Excellence, said the SWAT program is an outgrowth of conversations he had with Charlie Hutter, the president of Click Bond Inc.

in Carson City, and Rudi Wiedemann, the president of Biodiesel Solutions Inc.

in Sparks.

Each expressed frustration, Taormina said, that they didn't have a peer group where they could exchange ideas and tools to boost the performance of their organizations.

Because the founders of SWAT found that other peer-to-peer groups were unstructured and didn't specify outcomes, the new groups will be professionally facilitated and results will be tracked.

SWAT will field specific issues from participants in the Center for Business Excellence, assign business peers with experience with similar issues and convene a meeting to talk about possible discussions.

Participants would be required to implement the suggestions quickly and report the results to the Center for Business Excellence.

The center is a consortium of training and consulting professionals.

For information about the center or SWAT, contact Bob Killion, the executive director of the center, at 745-2757.