Helping your business take flight
Milkweed is more than a plant. It is a source of nourishment and transformation. Monarch butterflies rely on it to grow, thrive, and take flight. At Milkweed Consulting, I bring that same spirit to my work with clients. My role is to be your catalyst by providing the tools, insight, and steady support that help your business and your team flourish. Whether you are focused on strategic planning, operational improvement, or thoughtful technology leadership, I help you create the conditions for lasting success.
About
I’m Barbara Dusicka, founder of Milkweed Consulting. I’m a licensed Professional Engineer with more than twenty years of experience in leadership, engineering, technology, and internal operations. I spent most of my career at a single engineering consultancy, joining when it had just ten engineers and playing a key role in helping it scale into a nationwide firm of more than 250 employees, broadening its services well beyond engineering consulting to meet the needs of a growing and increasingly complex client base. As the organization grew, I worked hands-on to scale systems, strengthen culture, build operational foundations, and support leaders and teams through complexity and change. This experience gave me deep, firsthand insight into how organizations adapt as they grow and what enables them to thrive long term.
One of the most formative experiences of my career was being part of the leadership team that guided our organization through a transition to 100% employee ownership. I lived that process from nearly every angle: as a minority shareholder and option holder in the original company, as the executive with oversight of HR and Finance during the transition, and as the internal ESOP administrator and advisory committee chair for the five years that followed. In that administrator role I was responsible for the full arc of ongoing plan stewardship, managing allocations and distributions, overseeing plan design reviews, and modeling repurchase obligations, stock appreciation rights, and long-term ownership trends.
My most recent corporate role was Vice President of Technology and Internal Operations at Cascade Energy. In that position, I guided technology strategy, supported innovation, and helped the organization navigate major transitions. My background spans engineering, accounting, human resources, software development and cybersecurity compliance, which gives me a broad and practical understanding of how different parts of a business influence one another.
I bring a mix of strategic thinking, servant leadership, and technical experience to every engagement. I take the time to understand each client and the way their business truly works. My goal is to help leaders strengthen their teams, refine their operations, and feel confident in the way they show up for their organizations and communities.
Barbara Dusicka, PE
MILKWEED CONSULTING
Values
Integrity
I lead with honesty, respect, and accountability, prioritizing people and long‑term outcomes over shortcuts. My work is grounded in doing what’s right for the business and the people who support it, so organizations can build solutions they trust.
Shared Success
I believe that businesses thrive when everyone on the team is equipped to succeed. I share knowledge openly, create clarity where there is uncertainty, and build tools and systems that enable teams to grow with confidence and succeed together.
Expertise
My work is grounded in deep technical understanding and a holistic view of how people, processes, and systems interact. I focus not just on solving problems, but on delivering solutions that truly fit the organization, its goals, and its culture.
How Can We Help?
Fractional Executive Leadership
Some organizations reach a stage where they need senior leadership experience but aren’t yet ready for a full-time executive hire. Others have strong leadership in place but are facing a significant initiative, transition, or growth moment that temporarily demands more bandwidth or strategic firepower than the team has available. In either case, I can help.
I work with founders, CEOs, and leadership teams on a part-time or project basis, providing support across technology strategy, internal operations, human resources, and organizational development. This isn’t advisory from a distance. I engage as a genuine thought partner and, where it helps, a hands-on contributor, helping you work through real decisions, build the right systems, and lead your team with confidence. Whether you need someone to help shape a critical initiative, bring structure to a growth moment, or simply think alongside you on the harder questions, I bring the perspective of someone who has done it.
ESOP Advisory
An Employee Stock Ownership Plan can be a powerful path for a business owner looking to transition ownership while preserving culture, rewarding employees, and creating a lasting legacy. It is also a complex undertaking with significant legal, financial, and operational implications that unfold over years, not just at the moment of transaction. I work with business owners and leadership teams at every stage of that journey, from early exploration and plan design through transaction execution and the ongoing operational work that follows.
Having lived this process from nearly every angle, I can help you understand what an ESOP actually involves, navigate your relationships with transaction attorneys, trustees, and your accounting team, and think through the implications of key plan design decisions. In the years after the transaction closes, I help organizations build the systems, develop the internal capacity, and shape the communication and culture strategies that determine whether your ESOP succeeds in making employees truly feel and embrace their ownership interest in the company.
Compliance Program Design and Management
Compliance must be robust, realistic, and integrated — not a box-checking exercise. I bring hands-on experience designing and managing programs across IT security (SOC 2), workplace safety (OSHA), and HR compliance including pay equity and demographic analytics. I create frameworks that fit how your business actually operates, so your team can meet requirements confidently and sustainably, without compliance becoming a distraction from the work that matters.
Business Analytics and Modeling
The ability to see what the numbers are actually telling you is at the heart of good decision-making. I bring an engineer’s rigor to business analysis, helping organizations build the reporting tools, models, and dashboards that support clear-eyed decisions. Whether that means a one-time financial model, an operational performance framework, or an ongoing analytics capability your team can run themselves, I focus on building something that genuinely fits how your leadership team thinks and works.
Interim Coverage and Team Augmentation
Sometimes the need is simple: a key person is out on leave, a role is vacant while you conduct a search, or a project requires more capacity than your team currently has. Whether the priority is continuity, focused augmentation in a critical area, or simply an extra set of experienced hands, I step in quickly and get up to speed fast. With experience spanning executive leadership and day-to-day operational roles across HR, IT, finance, administration, and more, I can cover a wide range of needs at a range of levels. My goal is always to leave things in better shape than I found them.