Advantage Family Business Center is, itself, a family business. Mother and daughter have teamed up to offer highly professional coaching, consulting and training services.

Karen Calcagno, CPCC

Certified Professional Co-Active Coach

Originally a teacher, then business owner, Karen is a Family Business Coach with 15 years experience helping families grow stronger through the estate administration and distribution process. Coupled with extensive experience and a deep understanding of people, processes and systems, Karen is a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC). She has had extensive post certification coach training with advanced studies in Organizational Relationship Systems, Team Systems and Mediation Training.

She has personally been through the estate resolution process five times with branches of her own blended family.

She has broad experience in Relationship Coaching with families. Karen's caring, confidential, to-the-point coaching, consulting, facilitation and mediation helps group and individual clients find vision, clarity and healing that leads to constructive action.

Karen’s contribution to peaceful family estate settlement spans more than fifteen years. She helps families build their teams and successfully navigate their way through land mines of old sibling behavior to create a new way to be together.

Facilitated meetings supported by individual and group coaching create a level playing field. All involved are encouraged to be their best while working out the details of elder care or estate distribution.

Karen has her California Secondary Teaching Credential and is a Board member of the Conflict Resolution Center of Santa Cruz County, California.

Family coaching, individual coaching, mediation, facilitation and training are provided by Advantage Family Business Center to promote peacemaking skills in families facing elder care and estate resolution.

Claire Laughlin, MA

With a Masters Degree in Communication Studies and over 10 years experience as a consultant and trainer, Claire develops and delivers corporate training, conducts needs assessments, performance consulting and evaluation for business clients. In addition, Claire is a leadership communication coach and consultant. She has broad success in coaching family members to step up to the next level.

Guiding Beliefs

The motivation for our work is the belief that world peace must begin on a personal level. What more perfect place is there to learn to be peaceful while managing conflict in a healthy way, than in the family or partnership system? Family enterprise brings passion and purpose together to provide for the family. This may be in the form of a commercial venture or in the administration of a family estate.

Our guiding beliefs in assisting family relationship systems to become their best and most effective are as follows:

• Organizational and relationship systems are alive and have the power to heal people and help them grow.
• With the willingness of system participants, difficult and destructive habits of relating can be shifted in a healthy direction.
• Creating a safe space for family or partnership interaction is essential for repair and growth.
• Awareness is a critical, but insufficient condition for growth. It must be paired with behavioral change to be effective.
• Conflict can be useful when it becomes the means by which relationships awaken to change. Learning to leverage conflict to create peace is world work.
• Mixed family and business relationships have enormous passion. This passionate energy can be the driver that maximizes individual potential, creates relationship strength and produces business prosperity.

Education and real life experience make both Karen and Claire superlative advisors and coaches for family enterprise.