President
Sandra co-founded Pleiades Services in 1992 with her partner Nick Batik. Throughout her over 40-year business career, she has enjoyed responsible assignments in print production and management; training program development; project management; business process analysis; research and development; quality system operations; communications and customer/vendor relations. She has conducted over 400 business and seminars and workshops and has been a featured speaker at numerous national and international conferences.
Sandra has earned a reputation for taking highly complex subjects and presenting them in easily understood modules. Her informal approach helps put Pleiades Publishing Services’ clients at ease and ready to tackle new approaches to their business processes. Her many years’ experience as a Business Process Analyst, Researcher, Curricula Developer and Trainer helps her bring a real-world sensibility to her work — leading client-project, Discovery Sessions.
Sandra supports Pleiades Services clients as a professional information technologist and business strategist. She works with our clients to develop feasibility studies, competition, and market analyses and provides Discovery Session reports, creative briefs, white papers, as well as training materials to support their business development campaigns.
Sandra has been a Co-organizer of the Austin WordPress Meetup Group, one of the largest, and most active, WordPress meet-ups in the world, since 2010. Her purpose-driven approach to curricula development is appreciated by her students in the Hands-On WordPress Training Classes.
Ms. Chevalier-Batik served on the founding board (1988-1992), and as President of the Colorado Women’s Chamber of Commerce; and as a board member, and later as President, of the National Business Quality Foundation (1989-1993). During her term as an NBQF board member, Sandra became a Deming Certified Quality, Productivity, and Competitive Positioning Analyst. Sandra developed and presented numerous Total Quality Management Training Sessions and Quality Partnership Programs for Local, State and Federal Agencies, including Colorado Small Business Development Office, The Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Defense, and The Army Corps of Engineers. Additionally, she developed a Quality Partnership program for the Clemson University Conference on Professional Development for Women.
The Colorado Small Business Development Office appointed Chevalier-Batik as the Minority and Women’s Small Business Development Circuit Rider (1991-1992). In that position, she focused on the business development needs of emerging and small businesses in the metro-Denver area. In recognition for her work in the Minority and Women Business Community, Sandra was also chosen to participate in a Statewide leadership development program, 50-For-Colorado.
For her work in minority and women’s business development, Sandra was awarded the 1992 SBA Region VIII, M/WBE Procurement Advocate Award; and the 1992 SBA Region VIII, Advocate of the Year Award for Women in Business. Sandra was recognized with the other leaders of the Minority Women’s Chamber Coalition as the 690th Point of Light by President George H. Bush and the Point of Light Foundation.
Special Event Organization
- Nation TQM Conference, Colorado Springs Co. 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
- Colorado Women’s Chamber Annual Awards Luncheon, 1989, 1990, 1991
- WordCamp Austin Organizer, 2010, 2012, 2013
- Austin WordUp 2011, 2012
- Austin WordPress Developer Day, 2012, 2013
- Happy Joe WordPress BootCamp, Austin TX 2015