Steven Darter has a distinguished career as a consultant, author, educator, and speaker. For more than forty years, he has counseled people ranging from CEOs of Fortune 500 corporations to troubled teenagers, on work, career, and life issues. He is the author of two books: Lessons from Life: Four Keys to Living with More Meaning, Purpose, and Success (2018); and Managing Yourself, Managing Others: Learn How to Improve Effectiveness, Productivity, and Work Satisfaction, which has three editions (2001, 2011, and 2015).
During his long career, Steve has interviewed close to five thousand people. In each interview, he used SIMA® (The System for Motivated Abilities®) to understand the person's unique motivational design {Motivated Abilities Pattern® (MAP®)} and best paths for success; and in some cases, what had gotten in their way. This vantage point gave Steve an unusually close-up view of how peoples' lives unfolded, including their successes and failures, and the impact of decisions they made, actions they took, beliefs they adopted, course corrections they made, regrets, feelings of disappointment and failure, and satisfaction. He is a recognized expert in helping people understand the implications of SIMA and MAPs, and is known for his dynamic and engaging presentations, workshops, seminars, and team-building sessions.
Since 1976, Steve’s consulting has focused on helping organizations improve results through a better understanding and positioning of people and helping people make good decisions about their life and work. He specializes in executive and management development, team development, selection, succession, and consultation on issues related to job fit, performance, and the effective utilization and management of strengths.
In 1976, Steve started his consulting career with People Management Inc. (now SIMA International). In 1984, he was appointed Senior Vice President and Head of Executive Search and Selection; from 1990 to 2005, he was president of People Management Northeast Inc.; and from 1996 to 1999, he simultaneously served as chairman of the People Management partnership organization. In 2005, he formed People Management SMD, LLC.
Steve has taught a career-counseling course to graduate counseling students at Saint Joseph College and an advanced practicum on “Managing to Strengths” to MBA students at the University of Hartford. His honors include being profiled as one of North America’s top executive recruiters in the book The New Career Makers, based on survey results of CEOs, senior HR executives, and other business leaders.
He has an MS degree in education and an EdS degree in counseling from the State University of New York at Albany. His BS degree is in sociology from SUNY at Oswego.
