Sterling Engineering and Consulting Group (SE&C) has two principal officers who co-founded the business in 2014: Theresa Schmoker, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Majority Owner and Duane Schmoker, Managing Director. Wilton Guerra is SE&C’s Business Manager.
Theresa Schmoker, CEO
With more than 30 years’ experience in analyzing problems and creating solutions, Theresa Schmoker is an exceptional leader who has worked with multi-national clients in addressing life-changing issues. Before joining her husband Duane in establishing SE&C as a successful technical-consulting enterprise, Theresa applied her talents to helping distressed individuals and families improve their situations and restore their lives. In 1998, she founded and led Healing Angels, a non-profit organization to provide counseling and guidance to troubled and abused teenagers, abused women with drug and alcohol addictions, and victims of abusive marriages. Healing Angels provided counseling services, temporary shelter, and nourishment at no cost to its clients in the Mid-Columbia region of Washington state for more than 15 years. Theresa has a Bachelor’s Degree in Theology and is a certified counselor for chemical dependency and trauma response and grief training. A recipient of a Dr. Martin Luther King Woman of the Year Award, Theresa is also an Ordained Minister in the Episcopal Church. In this capacity, she has coordinated and led missions in Mexico, Canada, and the U.S., helping disadvantaged and troubled and abused individuals overcome adversity.
Today, with her background as an insightful leader and business woman, Theresa ensures the overall successful operations of SE&C. She focuses on human relations and corporate outreach, which includes community internship and continuing education programs and energy projects for third-world countries.
Duane Schmoker, Managing Director
During his nearly 40-year career in energy and nuclear waste management, Duane Schmoker has earned a reputation for sound management leadership, strategic business development, and in-depth technical expertise. He has worked with customers worldwide, applying his unique analytical thinking skills to formulate and implement creative solutions that deliver positive results. An active member of the American Nuclear Society and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Duane has authored numerous technical papers on spent nuclear-fuel storage and transportation, and nuclear-waste management, including steam-reforming processes for treating orphan waste. He holds U.S. and international patents for technologies to improve nuclear material monitoring and storage. Prior to founding SE&C., Duane was a Senior Vice-President of Global Management & Operation Services Group at a fortune 200 company. In this function, he led business development, developed strategic initiatives, and managed the company’s energy and science portfolio. His forward-thinking approach delivered $24 Billion in new contracts/extensions over a 15-year period.
As SE&C’s Managing Director, Duane focuses on leading the company’s strategic business-development and marketing activities, contract negotiations, client relationship management, and recruitment of qualified resources to leverage diverse experience and technological advancements to satisfy client needs.
Wilton Guerra, Business Manager
Wilton Guerra has been a key part of SE&C since its inception and has successfully established the company’s, administrative, accounting, and financial procedures and processes. Before joining SE&C, Wilton worked in the food and beverage industry for more than ten years. His experience in customer service is a solid base for dealing with SE&C’s diverse pool of clients and subcontractors. The combination of Wilton’s educational background and training, customer-service orientation, perseverance, strong work ethic, self-motivation, and bi-lingual skills enables him to deliver positive results in any environment.
As the Business Manager for SE&C, Wilton focuses on managing SE&C’s budgets, client contracts, subcontracts, organizational and tax-filing compliance, and cash-flow management; and identifying and planning for the company’s current-future financial needs.