Our Team
Our team wakes up every day passionate about reducing
the divorce rate and helping couples enjoy lifelong love.
Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott
Founders
Les and Leslie are a husband-and-wife team who not only share the same name, but the same passion for helping others build healthy relationships. In 1991, the Parrott’s founded the Center for Relationship Development on the campus of Seattle Pacific University – a groundbreaking program dedicated to teaching the basics of good relationships.
Each year Les and Leslie speak in over 40 cities. Their audiences include a wide array of venues, from churches to Fortune 500 company boardrooms all across the country.
As #1 New York Times bestselling authors, their books have sold over one million copies in more than two dozen languages, and include best-selling and Gold-medallion winner Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts. Other popular titles include Love Talk, L.O.V.E., Your Time Starved Marriage, Crazy Good Sex and The Complete Guide to Marriage Mentoring.
The Parrotts have been guests on many national TV and radio programs such as CNN, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, The View with Barbara Walters, NBC Nightly News, and Oprah. Les and Leslie are also hosts of the nationally syndicated radio program Love Talk and are weekly guests on the Fox TV morning show in Seattle. Their work has been featured in Family Circle, Redbook, Men’s Health, Focus on the Family, Brides, as well as USA Today and The New York Times.
Kevin Small
Chair – Board of Directors
In 1996, Kevin Small was recruited by the leadership development author John C. Maxwell. Kevin was tasked with the creation of a platform that would be used to bring Maxwell’s leadership books to market. As the President of Maxwell’s company, Kevin launched a satellite event training series that would enroll over 1 million students while rolling out an integrated publishing platform that launched four New York Times bestselling leadership titles.
Maxwell’s annual book sales grew to over 1.2 million books. Under his leadership, the company grew dramatically over the next four years – from 10 to 125 people, and from $2 million to $25 million in revenue. Kevin managed the company’s sale in November 2004.
In March of 2005 Kevin founded The Marcus Buckingham Company around bestselling author and Gallup Researcher, Marcus Buckingham. For the next three years Kevin built a research and training company around Buckingham’s body of work developed after Buckingham left The Gallup Organization. Kevin served as the Executive Producer for Buckingham’s award winning film, Trombone Player Wanted, and launched the book, Go Put Your Strengths To Work, which was debuted with a dedicated Oprah show and a national book tour.
Meanwhile, the book business was changing quickly. Publishers were less and less able to commit the usual level of resources to authors’ launches. Kevin recognized that market conditions would soon require that authors have their own marketing representation in order to have impact — despite the strength of their ideas, or their platform. Kevin’s response was to form ResultSource, a boutique marketing firm that works with today’s thought leaders to build bestsellers.
Today Kevin Small serves as the Managing Partner to ResultSource as well as SmallBooks.com where he agents business, self help and Christian Living books.
Kevin and his wife of 15 years, Robin, have four children and reside in Carlsbad, CA.
Ryan Farmer
Executive Director
The Parrotts welcome Ryan Farmer to the Marriage Mentoring leadership team. Ryan is managing all aspects of the Marriage Mentoring movement, whose goal is to wake the sleeping giant of Marriage Mentors across North America.
With experience in corporate, church and startup leadership, Ryan brings a unique toolkit to the Marriage Mentoring team. After spending nearly a decade at Eddie Bauer as a Systems Analyst, he and 8 friends launched EastLake Church in the Seattle suburbs. Ryan later joined EastLake as Executive Pastor and helped lead the plant to over 5,000 in weekly attendance and thousands of first time decisions for Christ. Before joining the Marriage Mentoring team, Ryan ran a small but successful consulting firm that helped businesses across the United States improve their customer service scores with a blend of technology and technique.
Ryan and his wife, Kendra, have two kids and live in Kirkland, WA.
ryan(at)marriagementoring.com
Tim Popadic
Marketing Director
Tim Popadic is the National Director of the Relationship Enrichment Collaborative. He travels the country helping churches, communities and organizations create “Date Night” programs to impact the relationships within their communities.
Tim has been in full-time pastoral ministry for the past 20 years. Most recently he has served as the Pastor of Marriage and Family at Christ Fellowship Church in Palm Beach Gardens, FL. He’s worked with thousands of couples and families across the country helping enrich couples in their relationships and well as training up hundreds of mentor couples. He is the Lead Innovator on the Marriage Mentoring Platform that will be released in early 2013. Tim is a trained Marriage and Family therapist and speaks nationally at conferences and workshops on being intentional in relationships.
Tim and his wife Beth have been married for 19 years and have 4 boys.
tim(at)marriagementoring.com
Mandi Moragne
Director of Awesome Customer Experiences
Mandi Moragne works with our partners and customers to create smooth processes and answer all your questions…all with our customer’s experience at heart.
“Mandi’s energy for life is infectious,” said Scott Burbank (Executive Director), “her skill and training in building ways to care for the customer make her very valuable to our team. We are thrilled that Mandi shares a passion for marriage and healthy relationships…and great customer experiences.”
Mandi’s enthusiasm for customer experience development began 10 years ago as a National Account Manager at AT&T (formerly, BellSouth). There, she developed a high-performing team based on customer-focused principles. Her skill at managing complexity allowed her to move from front-line sales and service to process improvement and project management. Through it all, she never lost sight of the end goal of making the customer experience the best it could be.
In 2004, Mandi joined AT&T’s Broadband organization, serving as the Process Improvement Manager for the DSL Call Center. Her focus on service and growth led to an invitation to join the company’s Leadership Development Team. In 2007, Mandi left AT&T to focus on her young family. She joined our team in March, 2011.
Mandi attended Vanderbilt University and holds a bachelor’s degree in Human and Organizational Development. She resides in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband Coy and their four children, Lillie, Carter, Dawson and Eli. In her free time, Mandi enjoys working in her garden, reading and volunteering.
mandi(at)marriagementoring.com
Janice Lundquist
Director of Events
Janice Lundquist is our Director of Events. A graduate of Wheaton college, she began her career in 1986 as a book publicist for David C. Cook Publishers. After several years in the corporate world she spread her entrepreneurial wings and launched her own public relations firm.
Janice met the Parrotts when she was hired in 1996 by their publisher to launch one of their new titles. It wasn’t long before Janice was recruited to be the Parrott’s full time publicist.
Since 2005, Janice has managed all the details surrounding our LIVE events. From a church or organization’s initial inquiry, to the post event wrap up, Janice oversees all the moving pieces. “We’ve never known anyone who is more on top of the details and eager to serve others than Janice,” says Les Parrott. “She’s a true gift to our efforts.”
Janice is also an accredited travel agent, whose skills come in handy as she manages Les and Leslie’s travel all over North America and internationally.
Janice is passionate about the ocean and takes every opportunity to get to a beach – any beach. She loves, boating, waterskiing, swimming, jet skiing, kayaking, snorkeling and bobbing in the waves.
Janice and her husband Curt, married in 1988, live in the suburbs of Chicago. They have one high school daughter at home and one daugther in college.
janicel(at)marriagementoring.com
