

Transforming Communities Through Wellness: The Blue Zones Experience
In this episode, Karen Nowicki has a dynamic conversation with Kathleen Gramzay and Sarah Kearney, delving into the transformative impact of the Blue Zones Project in Scottsdale. Kathleen brings her expertise in holistic wellness, stressing the vital link between individual well-being and community health. Sarah elaborates on the Blue Zones Project’s mission to promote longevity and wellness based on lifestyle principles from global longevity hotspots. Together, they explore the project’s community-driven approach and collaborative efforts with local organizations to tailor initiatives to Scottsdale’s needs.
They both share the importance of aligning values and fostering connections for long-term well-being, seamlessly tying together the episode’s overarching themes of personal empowerment and community engagement in pursuit of healthier, more resilient lifestyles.

Blue Zones Project is a community-wide well-being improvement initiative designed to make healthy choices easier through permanent changes to surroundings and environments – places where people work, eat, live, walk, learn, ride bikes, and spend time together. By helping people live better, longer through behavior change, communities can lower healthcare costs, improve productivity, and boost national recognition as a great place to live, work, and play.
Sarah Kearney leads Blue Zones Project Scottsdale as the Executive Director. Her leadership experience is diverse and rooted in community well-being, service, and forward-thinking optimism. She most recently worked for Experience Scottsdale, a destination marketing organization whose mission is to enhance the Scottsdale community through tourism.
In Sarah’s 16+ year tenure at the organization, she held several senior leadership roles and specialized in partner development strategy, membership and community engagement, program development, and more.
Driven by her passion for the Scottsdale community, Sarah has served, led, and guided several local organizations, leaving a cross-sector imprint. She has served as the Board President for Scottsdale Leadership, the Board President for Community Celebrating Diversity, a Board Member for Scottsdale Sister Cities, the Officer of Membership for Millennials in Travel, and the Vice President of Community Outreach at GiGi’s Playhouse Phoenix/Scottsdale.
Sarah holds an MBA from the University of Phoenix and a B.A. in Communication from Arizona State University. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling, reading, sports and spending time in the Scottsdale sunshine. She is a proud wife and hockey, dance, and dog mom to her two children and golden retriever.
Follow Blue Zones Project on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.

Kinessage LLC provides organizations with resilience strategy and body/mind resilience training, teaching leaders and teams to reduce stress, burnout, and pain for more resilient workforces and healthier, happier people.
Kathleen Gramzay, LMT and Founder of Kinessage LLC operates as a fractional Chief Resilience Officer, resilience strategy consultant, and body/mind resilience trainer to optimize organizational and individual sustainability.
Kathleen has been a body/mind resilience innovator for over 20 years. In addition to her practice as a 20-year board-certified massage therapist, she developed and taught Kinessage® Massage Through Movement and Kinessage® Self Care to occupational, physical, and massage therapists around the country.
Kinessage is a unique massage method and method of self-care that uses the nervous system and movement to self-release the chronic tension patterns underlying musculoskeletal disorders without drugs or need of a practitioner.
Her own entrepreneurial experience with chronic stress and burnout bringing the do-it-yourself Kinessage® Virtual Self-Care System to business and the public necessitated her discovery of body/mind reset tools to restore her own mental function and well-being.
Connect with Kathleen on LinkedIn.



Victor Assad is the CEO of Victor Assad Strategic HR Consulting Managing Partner of InnovationOne, LLC. He works with companies to transform HR, conduct executive and technical searches, implement hybrid work, and improve leaders, teams, and cultures of innovation.
Carol Stewart, a long-standing authority on research parks, is the Vice President for Tech Parks Arizona at the University of Arizona. Carol Stewart leads the UA Tech Park at Rita Road and is developing the UA Tech Park at The Bridges.
Art Taylor serves as a vice president within PayPal’s Global Compliance Investigations division. In this capacity, Taylor leads a team of industry experts in charge of risk and compliance investigations in North America, ensuring PayPal fulfills its commitment to combat money laundering, terrorism financing and other related financial crimes.
Steve Zylstra serves as president and CEO of the Arizona Technology Council, a role he assumed in 2007. He is responsible for strategy, operations, finance and policy development. Zylstra is a vocal spokesman for the value technology can provide in raising social and economic standards in Arizona.
Karen Nowicki is a successful author, speaker and the creator of Deep Impact Leadership™ and SoulMarks Coaching™. She is a two-time recipient of the prestigious national Choice Award® for her book and personal development retreat. Karen was crowned the first-ever “Mompreneur of the Year” Award in 2010 for the southwestern states. She was recognized for her leadership, business acumen, and work-life balance.
Leslie Cooper Marquez is a dynamic marketing professional with over 17 years of broad-based marketing, public relations and advertising experience in both in-house and agency environments.







Not In Sales helps technology-focused organizations expand adoption of its offerings and further drive revenue by rejecting archaic s@!es processes and embracing authentic relationships.






Craig Forman is a Lead People Scientist at Culture Amp, an employee experience platform used by over 6000 organizations worldwide. He both supports organizations in building effective people and culture strategies along with building the world’s largest community of people focused on building a better world of work. Behind all of his work is a mission to help the world work better by improving the places we work.
Bobi Seredich is the Co-Founder & President of The Southwest Institute for Emotional Intelligence. She is a certified coach and trainer in Emotional Intelligence from the Institute for Health and Human Potential. She is a recognized speaker, author, trainer, and successful entrepreneur specializing in leadership development.




She has been recognized in the Maxwell Leadership Team in the Top 20 Nominees for the Maxwell Leadership Team Culture Award. She’s a 2019 Stage Time Winner. Darlene has been featured in the Peachtree City Magazine on two occasions.



Brian Wood is a previous Chairman of The Board for the Tempe Chamber of Commerce. With 30 years of experience at American Airlines and Waste Management, he combines a corporate perspective with his background as an athlete and a certified professional coach to provide clients with unique support and guidance toward the next level of greatness.
Shawn Snyder is an accomplished organizational development expert with a proven ability to develop and implement training strategies as well as organizational change initiatives. He is recognized as an expert in human performance and developing tomorrow’s leaders. He has also led multi-million dollar change initiatives for Fortune 500 companies.
Kelly Lorenzen, CEO of KLM Consulting, is an award-winning entrepreneur with over 15 years of business-ownership experience. She is also a certified project management professional. 













