The Toastmasters Trio includes the District Director, Program Quality Director and Club Growth Director. These individuals work together to ensure the district continues to grow, officers are trained and supported in their roles, members and clubs meet their goals, and district leaders receive the resources needed to properly lead and succeed.
Diane Pleuss, DTM
District Director
The district director is responsible for administration and overseeing the district’s day-t-day operations, finances, and human resources. The district director does this with the help of a strong team district leaders. As a team, the District leadership works toward the district mission while supporting each other in their development in leadership.
Diane is still a proud “Pointer,” having graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point with a double major in Communications and Home Economics. She accomplished this feat in four years with high honors. She received the University’s highest honor, the James H. Albertson award, which was given to 14 graduating seniors and recently was invited back to give the keynote address at that same awards dinner. (She said she couldn’t have done it without the skills she has learned in Toastmasters!) Diane went on to earn her MBA from UW – Oshkosh while working full time.
Diane has really had three careers and each has been a passion. First in advertising where she was the president of the Green Bay, WI Advertising Association and then the president of the East Bay, CA Advertising Club. Next in franchising where she has spent almost 25 years in the industry with the last 14 years as an independent franchise business consultant with FranChoice. Finally, Toastmasters! This, of course, isn’t a separate career, but an avocation. Diane joined the Word Weavers Toastmasters club in 2009 and has been instrumental in its distinguished status. She has been president of the club three times and held the following District roles: Area B21 Director, Division B Director, Speechcraft Chair, Credentials Chair and Contest Chair. She is humbled and excited to be leading the District with a focus on growth, recognition, and fun. It starts with the members meeting their personal goals and have a good Toastmasters experience. Based on that, and an incredibly strong team, Diane sees significant growth and a very bright future for District 57. Diane likes to go running, biking and planning the next travel adventure.
Hear Diane talk about her D57 goals on Toastmasters TV
Kevin Markl, IP4, MS4, ACG, ALB Program Quality Director
The PQD strives to have every club and member reap the benefits of Toastmasters and become Distinguished by providing direction and counsel to division/area directors and club officers on the educational opportunities in Toastmasters. This includes designing and conducting successful training programs, conferences, and other district educational events.
Kevin is passionate about helping others. Either as a Product Marketing Manager for a top five cloud computing service provider or as the District 57 Program Quality Director for 2018-2019. Kevin graduated from the prestigious McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. In Toastmasters, Kevin has served as the D57 PR manager, a club president, and chaired or co-chaired numerous D57 events, program initiatives, and leadership campaigns. In each of these roles, Kevin has always focused on helping others to reach their goals. His consultative leadership style and diligence in working with disparate groups bodes well for District 57. Kevin has recently become a homeowner, and most importantly the product owner of a pure-bred Australian Labradoodle.
Hear Kevin talk about his D57 goals on Toastmasters TV
Bett Bollhoefer, DTM — Club Growth Director
The role of the Club Growth Director (CGD) is to lead club growth in the district. This requires a two-pronged approach: help all existing clubs be successful and grow new clubs. The CGD works to put incentives and initiatives in place that encourage active membership building and assist challenged clubs to regain strength. The CGD recruits and works with teams of club coaches, new club mentors and sponsors and the club extension chair to drive efforts to ensure our district has strong, thriving clubs and continually looks for opportunities to start new clubs.
Bett has worked in the IT and development space since 1999. She graduated from the University of South Florida with a Computer Science degree. She is a Distinguished Toastmaster, former President of Distinguished Division Director in Toastmasters, and winner of the Division Director of the Year award. She used to be a shy software developer but Toastmasters gave her the communication, organization and leadership skills to get promoted to a Solutions Architect at Verizon. Today, Bett is a Product Manager at GE Digital focused on creating the Industrial Internet of Things. To round out her technical expertise, Bett speaks and writes on software design and is the author of two books, You Can Be a Software Architect and the sci-fi novel Engineer Your Perfect Child. Bett cohosted the popular Software Architecture Concepts podcast for two years. And for fun, Bett does, yoga, improv actor, swing dancing, and playing the cello in the Oakland based band Breaking Waves.
