We are a network of professionals – a consortium of “hands-on” practitioners who specialize in the small to medium-sized enterprise, the SME.

Our combined expertise reaches across a wide variety of business sectors, from retail/wholesale of consumer products to the telecommunication industry, and from for profit companies to non-profit organizations.

We develop custom-designed programs that are tailored to your needs and deliver our assistance at your location.

Thank you for taking the time to visit our web site. Please peruse our current course components that we utilize as a base for customizing programs, then tell us how we can help you achieve your personal and organizational goals. We look forward to hearing from you.

Fellows of the Karsten Institute

All fellows of the Karsten Institute have been selected and recruited for their real life experiences in the profession of organizational leadership and workforce development. All have developed management teams and led them. All are master teachers who specialize in the curriculum of personal, and thereby professional, growth.

Ron Karsten
Leadership Development
Founder of Karsten Institute

Ron gained his leadership experience in successive executive roles in both public and private sectors. He served his country for 24 years first as a member of the US Marine Corps and subsequently as a member of the Oregon Army National Guard. He was a regional manager for Schneider National Transportation, then directed the sales effort for automotive diagnostic training in the Western United States for Snap-on Tools and was an owner of two successful training companies. Following that, he was Director of Field Operations for Electric Lightwave, Vice President of Operations for Integra Telecom, and most recently was the Director of the Portland Campus of DeVry University and Keller Graduate School of Management in Portland.

He has been recognized as Practitioner Faculty of the Year the for the Oregon Campus of the University of Phoenix and earned University Presidential Honors as a member of the Adjunct Faculty at Marylhurst University where he currently teaches courses in business leadership. Ron holds a Master's Degree in Management Science.

Bob Cook
Market Development: Both For-profit & Nonprofit Sectors

Bob has extensive business management experience, beginning as a store manager with the Kroger Company. After 7 years as a store manager with Kroger, Bob went on to become a sales manager with the film and instructional media division of Encylopaedia Britannica Educational Corporation. The move initiated a twenty-year sales & marketing career that rose through the executive ranks in the motion picture industry. Bob was a pioneering sales executive who was among those first charged with developing the workforce and distribution channels to market motion pictures in video format – with a business entity that went from $2 million annual revenues to over $200 million in 5 years.

After being “on the road” nationally and internationally, Bob and his family moved to Portland, Oregon and created a new company, Association & Conference Services, Inc. A&CS provides management development and administrative support services on a contract basis to nonprofit organizations.

Bob holds a Master’s Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies. Since 2007 he has been a member of the Adjunct Faculty at Marylhurst University where he currently teaches courses in supply chain management, nonprofit management, and small business accounting & finance.

Angela Hamilton
Sustainable Business Solutions

Angela L. Hamilton guides groups and organizations to apply eco-conscious design and living systems principles to their organizations in order to envision and implement sustainable business solutions throughout their systems and processes.  At Portland State University, she currently facilitates a seminar on social sustainability as adjunct faculty and coordinates a student leadership and service program that provides funding to students for implementing sustainability projects on campus.  As Regional Leadership Programs Coordinator for the US Partnership on Education for Sustainable Development, Angela connects people and resources through communities of practice in order to support large-scale social innovation. 

Certified in medical, legal, and insurance interpretation, she has also worked as a Spanish-English telephone interpreter for over five years.  Ms. Hamilton taught English and English as a Second Language for over a decade including four years while living in Ecuador.  Other diverse experiences include international import-exports, large-screen video wall technology, entrepeneurship, ecotourism, and international education.  Angela is a member of the Phi Kappa Phi honor society and a founding board member of the Earth Wisdom Alliance.  Angela completed her master's degree at PSU in Educational Leadership and Policy with an emphasis on Leadership for Sustainability Education.  Her dual-major bachelor's degree is in Spanish and Psychology from Pacific University.