Meet Our Team

Mark Wickman

Mark is the founder of Family Business Counsel and is fortunate to spend his best hours and efforts convening and facilitating conversations with small businesses, families and organizations – helping them have the conversations they know they need to have but avoid. Mark is the author of two books:

• The Family Business Teeter Totter (Balancing Those Two Wor(l)ds) – available on Amazon.
• “Wealth or Well-th? Re-defining Financial Freedom” – self-published.

Mark has been a presenter on a variety of topics that family businesses encounter, including:

• Mining Conflict – how to change from viewing conflict as a Land Mine to viewing it as a Gold Mine.
• The challenges of multiple generations working together.
• The high cost of inaction.
• Creating healthy culture, particularly around communication.

Mark believes that family businesses are the primary entity creating jobs in our cities and towns and that they help promote the potential for communities to experience flourishing futures. 

Mark graduated with a Bachelors and a Masters from Linfield College. Mark and his wife Lyn have been married since 1986 and are the parents of two adult children, Lindsay and Drew. They are committed to the ideals of healthy communication and healthy communities and continue to be involved with a variety of local, regional and international causes.

Martha Nicol

Martha joined Family Business Counsel as the director of operations in April of 2016 after spending 25 years in healthcare administration. She met Mark many years ago and the two had often talked about working together and were excited when it all came together.

Martha and her husband Abby have been married since 1981 and have two grown children and three grandchildren. Their favorite pastimes are traveling and playing with the grandkids.

Cindi Mortimer Kies - Affiliate

With almost 30 years as a VP in hospital administration, Cindi knows what to do to engage in conversations business owners have related to conflict. She facilitates meaningful dialogue that can move your organization forward. With a masters in management, human relations and organizational behavior, she brings with her an understanding of leadership and management from all levels within a business. She says, “Although businesses are often complex, solutions don’t have to be.” She prides herself in simplifying planning for organizations and supports many key organizational processes that are pro-owner and yet also reflect individual and company needs.

In addition to her work with FBC as a senior advisor, Cindi brings new services as part of our offering. She provides tools that organizations need if they want to show sustainable progress. She can provide an in-depth organization-wide cultural assessment for your business with corresponding summaries and action plans. She is also well-versed in simple strategic planning models, management and leadership development through education, and can assist with the administration of personal assessments to develop more group cohesiveness within your family business.

Cindi is the granddaughter of apple farmers in Washington State. Seeing some of the dysfunctions, joys, and struggles inherent in a family business model allows Cindi to show empathy and understanding for what you may be experiencing. She admires those family businesses that have persevered and are pressing on toward a hopeful future.

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth - Affiliate

Dr. Whitworth became interested in family business consulting while searching for ways to apply the creative-problem solving skills honed through therapy and mediation to her enjoyment of the challenges in running a business.  Serendipitously, she met Mark Wickman, who owns and operates Family Business Counsel, a thriving family business consulting practice in Oregon.  In July 2018, Dr. Whitworth began to collaborate with Family Business Counsel clients in Oregon.  In February 2019, she also joined the family business consulting team at Cox Family Business Center of Kennesaw State University.  There she collaborates on research projects as well as provides consulting services through their referral network and business “clinic".

Dr. Whitworth received her doctorate in 2009 from Georgia School of Professional Psychology, after graduating from Wheaton College in 2002. 

She comes from a large, close-knit family and currently lives in her hometown of Covington, Georgia with her husband and two children.  She is active in her community and enjoys being able to walk to her office, children’s school, and most errands around town.  Happy habits include reading (often overdue library books), power yoga, backyard potlucks, garden club, and playing cello in the praise band at church.  She also enjoys several smaller business projects with her younger sister, traveling with her husband for his work, and watching her children master a bit more of life’s challenges each day.