Larry Wenger is the founder and President of Workforce Performance Group. He has spent the last 40 years in the management of human service organizations. His work has spanned both public and private sectors in programs related to child welfare, juvenile justice, developmental disabilities, and mental health. He specialized in assisting organizations approaching programmatic and/or fiscal collapse and organizations undergoing major growth and expansion. This work has taken him throughout the United States, Canada and Central America.
Most recently, Larry was Associate Executive Director of Catholic Charities, Diocese of Metuchen where he managed all program operations in four counties for this fifty million dollar agency. Formerly he was Executive Director of the Center for Innovative Family Achievements, Superintendent of the Mercer County Youth Detention Center, and Director of Program Development and President of TSMH Corporation for Covenant House, NYC. Larry also served as Director of Program Evaluation and Assistant Hospital Administrator for the NJ Department of Human Services.
Educated as a Social Worker, he holds an MSW from the University of Kansas School of Social Work. Larry has also served on a number of Boards and Task Forces.
In 2004 he established Foundations for Community Programs now operating under the name of Workforce Performance Group. His specialty is assisting human service organizations achieve their goals through improved staff performance and Leadership Development.
Annie Lachs
Vice President
Annie Lachs is Vice President and a Principal Consultant at Workforce Performance Group. A veteran administrator, with top executive experience in large mental health, development disabilities, education and child care organizations based in New Jersey and Massachusetts, she specializes in Team Building, Communication, Running Effective Meetings, Leadership Development, Strategic Planning and Management Coaching.
She has over 38 years experience in human service management having worked at Catholic Charities, Diocese of Metuchen (Director of Communication), Summit Child Care Centers (Executive Director), Association of Mental Health Agencies in New Jersey (Associate Executive Director), Carrier Clinic(Director), and Association for Advancement of Mental Health (Executive Director). She has managed organization with budgets as large as nine million dollars and staff as large as 300 in addition to sitting on the Executive Team of a fifty million dollar organization. She has worked for various state agencies including the Massachusetts Office for Children. She served as Consultant Evaluator for a special education collaborative of 13 school systems which she started.
A passion for teams, Lachs has introduced the concepts of teams building and team based operations in three organizations in addition to consulting assignments. She created and launched Corporate Care Consulting Services serving corporations including AT&T, Lucent Technology, Ciba Geigy, Overlook Medical Center, St. Peters University Medical Center, Morristown Memorial Hospital, PSE&G, and other leading NJ corporations. She was a principal consultant for Neville Porter.
Lachs held seats on numerous statewide boards and task forces both as a member and as an officer. She has a Masters in Education from American International College, a Post Baccalaureate Diploma in Nonprofit Management from Adelphi University, and was a Doctoral candidate in Leadership. She has been honored with numerous awards. She regularly speaks at conferences and panels.
