Jennifer Beckey

Jennifer Beckey is an entrepreneurially-minded executive whose professional background encompasses companies in both the high technology and professional services sectors. Jennifer is currently the Regional Office Administrator for a global law firm. She also serves in an advisory role for an IT consulting company. Jennifer serves as Network Director for the WITI San Diego Network.

Jennifer has a Bachelor of Arts from Augsburg College in Minneapolis, MN. She has attained the SPHR (Senior Professional Human Resources), SHRM-SCP (Society of Human Resource Management, Senior Certified Professional) and CLM (Certified Legal Manager) accreditations.

Jennifer's passion is sailing; she and her husband belong to the San Diego Yacht Club.

Arline Gunter

Arline is an Independent Solution Delivery Consultant, specializing in helping companies bring new products, services and features to market through strategic, cross-functional program leadership, and instilling just the right amount of process to help teams scale and deliver successfully. Arline thrives in forging long-term relationships and building business partnerships bringing over 25 years experience delivering innovative products and complex analytics solutions to delight customers of Intuit, FICO and Accenture.

At Intuit, she held both Program Management and Software Development leadership roles, delivering delightful customer experiences for their flagship product (TurboTax), and Shared Services leveraged across all products. As part of the �"Discovery Team”, a start-up like innovation lab within Intuit, Arline applied design thinking, deep customer empathy and rapid prototyping to design and deliver new products, from concept through launch and delivery at scale. From the start of her career, she grew from various technical roles into a senior program manager responsible for proposal development, project execution, and client satisfaction for multi-million-dollar engagements. A San Diego native, she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Management Science at UCSD.

Arline is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), Certified Scrum Master (CSM) and Agile Coach (ICP-ACC). She shares her knowledge as a mentor and has served as an instructor for the local PMI Chapter and San Diego State Extension. Presently, she is creating a new, on-line curriculum and course for UCSD Extension's Software Engineering Management Certification Program, for which she will be an instructor.

Dena Ayala

Dena Ayala has 13 years experience within Talent Acquisition and Human Capital Services industry. During college Dena started a staffing company, Direct Resources, alongside her family. She developed a passion for helping people within their career search, while helping employers find talent their companies needed.

In 2004 Dena joined SOS Staffing, and redeveloped the San Diego Market. Within 3 years the division grew from 50 employees to nearly 300. She then travelled throughout the US to teach other SOS staff the fundamentals of executive recruiting. She was awarded SOS Pacific Region Top Sales Award in 2005.

To expand her area of focus within human capital, in 2008, Dena joined one of 100 largest staffing companies in the US, The Evergent Group. She was tasked to develop the San Diego market under a new business line, Suna Solutions, as Suna's first employee. Four years later, Suna has grown to over 500 employees in San Diego alone, and is one of the fastest growing firms in the nation recognized by Staffing Industry Analytics. Dena now oversees the recruiting functions for the business staffing division. Her division utilizes the most advanced recruiting techniques including social media recruiting concepts. She understands how to help her clients engage the top talent available and maintain a competitive workforce. In 2010 she was awarded Suna Solutions Presidents Award.

She is a member of National Human Resources Association and North County Personnel Association. She is heavily involved in the non-profit Casa De Amparo based in Oceanside.

A few fun facts about Dena: she is responsible for her company wellness initiative including organizing a weekly Yoga Class and participating in the Suna Soccer team. Dena is a native San Diegan who currently resides in Cardiff-by-the-Sea with her family - which includes six children aged 3 through 18--she's also known to be quite proficient at foosball.

Laura Kesler

Laura Kesler considers herself an extension of her clients' businesses, sourcing the talent they need to spearhead initiatives and deliver results. This mentality has been the driving force behind her extensive and successful career in IT staffing and consulting.

Laura joined Lucas Group in 2016 as a Managing Partner in the IT practice working with leading employers throughout the West Coast (especially in her local business community of San Diego) to fill critical and often complex IT roles ranging from SW Development Engineers, Mobile Developers, DevOps/AWS Cloud Engineer and Executive Search from the Director Level to the C-Suite. Laura collaborates with businesses to find the right talent acquisition strategy and identify those individuals who will contribute to their organization over the long term. By providing the best candidates in the market and working with business leaders to add innovative strategies for building winning teams, she creates sustained value for companies. Laura has developed a large network of consultants and professional advisors, which in turn helps lead to long-term, strategic placements.

Prior to Lucas Group, Laura spent more than 20 years in IT staffing and consulting, working with many Fortune 100/500 corporations in the U.S. Throughout her career, she sold and serviced large IT programs as well as grew a branch for Princeton Information from the ground up in Virginia. From there, she accepted a position as Vice President for CXI, building her office location, teams and revenue to record numbers. Laura also worked through an acquisition by CXI/Stefanini, a global technology staffing and consulting firm, as Vice President of Global Staffing, providing oversight of teams nationally and internationally. With her unparalleled industry knowledge and experience, Laura is able to source hard-to-find talent to meet the needs of her clients.

Laura's interest in consulting and business development extends outside the office as she is continuously educating and immersing herself in new technology trends and solutions strategies. She is also active in giving back to the local community, through the Salvation Army and other volunteer efforts. A competitive half marathoner, she holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Maryland.

Julia Knoke

Julia is a seasoned international business executive, with proven expertise in private, public and not-for-profit strategic planning and marketing execution. Julia's primary passion is successfully launching products or brands into new territories, be they in the virtual or physical world. She specializes in launch execution, brand awareness building, key messaging & outreach material development, and cross-cultural stakeholder collaboration.

Julia's experience includes luxury cosmeceutical and wellness products, outdoor sporting and military goods, private label and offshore production, commercial real estate development, and not-for-profit global licensing and membership associations. She has held positions with both B2B and B2C firms, from small, privately held companies looking to venture into new markets, to large multi-national influencers, such as L'Oreal and the World Trade Centers Association (WTCA) in New York.

Julia received her undergraduate degrees in Biology and German Literature from Occidental College, and her MBA, emphasis on International Marketing, from Thunderbird - the American Graduate School of International Management. She is also fluent in German, with strong proficiency in Spanish.