Our Team

Carol Trostle

Owner and Founder
Carol has over 25 years experience building and managing award winning, customer-focused call center operations. She is recognized as a hands-on leader in the field of customer contact. Carol's proven expertise in successful contact center programs has led to consulting engagements in a variety of industries, including healthcare, utilities, financial and food service. She is a sought after advisor for companies that want to enhance service quality and win new customers while reducing cost.

As an expert in her field, Carol is often asked to speak at industry conferences and has been a featured writer for trade publications such as CallCenter.com. Her business articles have been featured in The San Antonio Business Journal.

Carol has served on the Professional Teleservice Management Association (PTMA) Board of Directors for 7 years, including two terms as president. Other Board appointments include The National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO SA) and The Women's Advisory Board for Sapient Financial Group.

Clifton (Clif) Smiley

Senior Business Consultant
Clif has partnered with Trostle & Associates on multiple projects since 2004. He developed a Service Center and CRM, assisted with staff recruiting and performed final strategic implementation for a major petroleum company. Clif has also worked with insurance companies where he performed process mapping and provided supporting documentation that resulted in increased efficiencies and profitability.

Clif has made recommendations to streamline processes impacting quality, workforce management and customer service for multiple Trostle clients. His documentation of all processes related to customer service and billing for a home healthcare company served as the foundation for a training program developed by the Trostle team.

In the past, Clif managed claims and customer service for a national healthcare company.

He currently serves as President of the Professional Teleservice Management Association (PTMA) following Carol Trostle who served two terms as President. Together they led a committee of contact center executives through the process of developing a 2010 contact center awards program recognizing outstanding contact centers in South Texas.

Linda Mariani

Business Process Improvement
Linda partners with the Trostle project team, evaluating business processes and making recommendations to gain efficiencies for organizations such as insurance agencies, sales teams and home medical equipment suppliers.

Linda has developed reward and recognition programs that resulted in improved profitability and employee retention, and has implemented business process mapping that served as a foundation for custom training programs.

Linda's past experience in leadership roles in the Insurance industry and her strategic focus on operations makes her a strong asset in the development of comprehensive training courses. Her current role is President of The Corporate Troubleshooter, LLC, a business advisory firm based in San Antonio, TX.

Dr Virginia Moody

Leadership and Executive Coach
Virginia has facilitated Trostle Leadership workshops for one of Texas' largest Hospital Systems. Her ability to bring fun, excitement, awareness and accountability with a fresh perspective based upon her diverse life and business experiences makes her a good match for our leadership workshops.

Richard Trachtenberg

Contact Center Technology Consultant
Richard has a solid history of growing and managing contact centers and customer support facilities. He supports the Trostle team as our consultant for telephony, CRM and Internet projects. He specializes in engagements with telecommunications clients to enhance their technical support functions. He is a co-founder and past chair of the Austin Call Center Alliance, and he holds a bachelor's degree from Wesleyan University and a Masters degree from the University of Texas.

Kate Hayward

Curriculum Design and Development
Kate was retained by Trostle & Associates to lead the project team that developed The Business of Leadership™, a two-part course designed to transition new managers and management candidates into successful leadership roles. As a leader in the design and facilitation of problem solving, focus groups and strategy sessions using the latest social technologies, Kate recently managed the layout and design of a custom three-course program for one of our clients.

In addition to partnering with Trostle & Associates, Kate is President of Sticky Knowledge, an Instructional Design Consultant Firm in Spring Branch Texas. She has extensive experience in the design of instructional software for authoring, delivery, administration and content management of online courseware.

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