Shelley A. Kirkpatrick, PhD, is a principal at The MITRE Corporation, a not-for-profit organization that operates research and development centers for the federal government. She is also an adjunct professor of human resource management at George Mason University and a former professor at Carnegie Mellon University and American University. As founder of Visiontelligence LLC, she applies her research on company vision statements to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses. She is the author of Build a Better Vision Statement.