Character Leadership & Resilience Conference

This event is entirely online and held for Ivey HBA1 students. It is not open to the public.

On Wednesday, January 22, the Ian O. Ihnatowycz Institute for Leadership will be hosting the HBA Character Leadership & Resilience Conference. The event includes leaders who will deliver compelling messages about the importance character and resilience in our professional and personal lives.

Agenda:

Dr. Gloria Park

Gloria Park serves as the Director Performance Psychology with the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, in support of the Consortium for Health and Military Performance (CHAMP) and an Assistant Professor of Military and Emergency Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences. In this role, she leads all research, education, leadership, and operational support activities encompassing the psychological, social, and spiritual fitness domains. She also serves as the subject matter expert for performance and mental fitness domains across CHAMP’s leadership, education, and research initiatives. In her previous role as the Senior Mind Body Scientist, she translated research in the domains of Human Performance Optimization (HPO) for service members and their families across all military branches for the Human Performance Resources at CHAMP (HPRC) website. Prior to her work at CHAMP, Dr. Park worked extensively with the military community providing resilience and performance enhancement training for soldiers, DA civilians, and family members for 7 years, first with the University of Pennsylvania, and then with the Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness (CSF2) program.

Most recently, she was the Research Director for Wharton People Analytics at the University of Pennsylvania, where she was responsible for shaping and executing the research agenda in conjunction with faculty co-directors Adam Grant, Angela Duckworth, Cade Massey, and Matthew Bidwell and the WPA research team. She has served as part of the instructional team for the Master of Applied Positive Psychology program at Penn since 2006, and is a member of the training team through the Positive Psychology Center. Dr. Park provides performance psychology coaching, consulting, and keynote speaking through Perform Positive.

She received her doctorate in Kinesiology with a specialization in the Psychology of Human Movement from Temple University, her Master of Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, and a degree in Psychology from Villanova University. She is a Certified Mental Performance Coach (CMPC) through the Association of Applied Sport Psychology. Her most important jobs are being mom to a gregarious and spirited teenage son and a proud Army spouse to a husband, who retired in 2018 after 22 years of service to this country. She lives in Newtown Square, PA.

Patrick Tower

Patrick Tower served as an infantry soldier in the Canadian Army for 24 years. The formative years of his career were defined by multiple peacekeeping deployments to Croatia and Bosnia. In 2006, Patrick commanded at the section and platoon level during combat operations in Afghanistan.  For his exceptional leadership, courage, and devotion to duty under intense enemy fire, Patrick was awarded the Star of Military Valour—Canada’s second-highest military decoration for gallantry in battle.

Patrick’s leadership in Afghanistan has been chronicled in the best-selling books Fifteen Days by Christie Blatchford and Contact Charlie by Chris Wattie. His actions in combat were widely recognized, and in 2006, he was named The Globe and Mail’s Nation Builder of the Year and Maclean’s Magazine Newsmaker of the Year, highlighting his influence as a combat leader.

Since transitioning from the military in 2013, Patrick has brought his leadership expertise to the energy sector, spearheading high-reliability and operations excellence programs for major international and North American energy companies. His innovative, human-factors approach to tactical execution has been credited with transforming frontline oilfield operations.

Today, Patrick leads the Learning and Development team at BJ Energy Solutions in Houston, Texas. He is also a leadership mentor and coach with Pathfinder Leadership Associates, a group of Canadian veterans specializing in leadership development. Pathfinder focuses on real-world, hands-on experiences to build effective, resilient leaders.

Besides the Masters of Hard Knocks he earned from the University of Southern Afghanistan, Patrick also holds an MBA from Royal Roads University, and a Master’s certificate from the Schulich School of Business at York University.

When he’s not working, Patrick enjoys ranch life in the Texas Hill Country with his wife, Annalise, sharing love and laughter as they seek out cozy, tucked-away venues for Texas country music—always making sure to indulge in the best tacos that Texas has to offer!