July 22, 2002

Mark Gorkin, LICSW
Stress Doe Enterprises
1616 18th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20009-2530

Dear Mark:

This is to thank you again for your participation in the NIH 2002 Grants Management Retreat at Solomons Island. You did a wonderful job capturing the nature of the Grants Management profession and speaking to the audience in an informed manner. The feedback so far from attendees regarding your sessions has been overwhelmingly positive.

It's clear your plenary session helped to make this "one of the most fun retreats we've had." The drawing exercise proved to be an imaginative way to brainstorm and share thoughtful perspectives from Grants Management Specialists about our common frustrations, pet peeves, nemeses, etc. This was a creative change from the typically dull group exercise activities that can occur. The Chief Grants Management Officers were so intrigued by the comments from their staff that came out of the discussion that they plan on revisiting those themes from a management perspective shortly.

We also appreciate the time you took to prepare and conduct the workshop "Out of the Box Communication Tools" at two sessions. The scenarios and anecdotes you presented were realistic and outlined useful communication skills and negotiation tactics. Again, the interactivity between you and the audience made the sessions dynamic and unique. The handouts also were relevant and serve as reference material back at work and even in our personal lives.

It was a pleasure working with you to plan the plenary and workshop sessions. Your participation at our retreat greatly helped to make it an outstanding success overall! We will certainly keep you in mind for any future meetings that may be planned.

Sincerely yours,

Grace Tuanmu
Grants Administration Branch
Division of Extramural Activities
Public Health Service
Department of Health and Human Services