About Heidi

Heidi Marlinghaus is the founder and lead consultant of EQQE, LLC. She partners with schools, government agencies, nonprofits, and businesses to strengthen leadership, improve communication, and guide collaborative systems change. Heidi is known for designing practical, people-centered frameworks that help organizations solve complex challenges through inclusive planning, effective facilitation, and strengths-based strategy.

She is the co-creator of the T.R.A.I.L. of Conversations frameworks—tools that support teams in making clear, collaborative decisions and building systems where all voices are heard. Heidi also leads curriculum development for Healing for Work, an initiative focused on stress reduction, emotional regulation, and sustainable workplace wellbeing.

Before founding EQQE, Heidi spent 12 years in the classroom as an elementary school teacher, specializing in student-centered learning, team collaboration, and inclusive community building. Her work has always centered on helping people thrive—whether in schools, city governments, or cross-sector teams.

Heidi lives in Bend, Oregon, where she enjoys the outdoors and continues to support organizations nationwide in building resilient, high-functioning cultures grounded in clarity, connection, and shared leadership.

How EQQE Started

After years of studying child development, neuroscience, and positive teaching and parenting strategies, Heidi Marlinghaus saw firsthand what was possible when schools fostered thriving academic, social, and emotional environments. But she also recognized that these successes were the exception—not the norm.

Too often, she encountered talented teachers and leaders with the skills and passion to create change, but outdated policies, siloed systems, and top-down structures limited their ability to collaborate and innovate. Heidi saw that many schools—and later, government agencies and businesses—struggled with similar challenges: people working hard in isolation, with little opportunity to shape the systems they were a part of.

Driven by a desire to make a broader impact, Heidi left the classroom in 2019. She co-founded a group of consultants in the California Bay Area to support schools and education organizations, and later launched EQQE Consulting in Bend, Oregon, to expand this work across sectors.

Today, EQQE partners with schools, municipalities, nonprofits, and businesses to redesign how people work together—through collaborative planning, inclusive leadership, and strengths-based systems change.