Welcome to TrailPaths
It has been my honor and privilege over several decades to be part of many significant professional communities. Our collective work in Lean, Operational Excellence, Supply Chain Management and Leadership has truly made a positive impact on industry and the world.
And now the next chapter begins. This next chapter is to explore and uncover how we can improve all aspects of workforce development, considering future changes in workforce demographics, advances in new technologies and continued disruption in workplace dynamics.
The first step in this new chapter is to build a community to begin the conversation.
This is the purpose of TrailPaths.
I hope you enjoy your visit within the TrailPaths website.
And I hope you join the TrailPaths community to become part of the conversation.
Sincerely,
Robert O. Martichenko
Founder – TrailPaths

Building Meaningful Employment Environments
What a ride! This is the only way to describe business, and perhaps life in general, over the past few years. A ride indeed. In particular, the recent past has seen significant change and disruption in all issues surrounding workforce and workplace development. From the recognition of front-line workers to the continued conversation of work from home to upward pressure on wages to the increase in organized labor initiatives, the fact is, the conversation relative to the workforce has changed fundamentally.

What is TrailPaths
TrailPaths is an idea. An idea to help develop more ideas.
We want to start a conversation. We want to uncover innovative and sustainable solutions relative to workforce development. We want to help build meaningful work environments based upon the fundamental principles of Dignity and Respect.
TrailPaths is an idea. An idea to generate more ideas.
The goal is to build a Global Think-Tank that is focused on the “People and Human” side of the future of work, the future of leadership and the future of workforce development. We are a group of like-minded practitioners who want to trailblaze the paths that will allow organizations and individuals to develop, engage within and sustain meaningful work environments. This work will investigate the past, present and future to disseminate and leverage our collective lessons learned while attempting to build meaningful work environments guided by principles of Dignity and Respect.
- We want to brainstorm, complete research and hear and share stories.
- We want to challenge the status quo, break down biases and get to real solutions.
- We want to uncover the secrets that will allow us to create meaningful work environments.
TrailPaths Purpose
Technologies, globalization and changing workforce demographics are fundamentality challenging all aspects of work and organizational cultures. People now have choices relative to where they work, and people want to participate and contribute to working environments that are meaningful to them as an individual.
To remain competitive, organizations must focus on innovative and modern strategies relative to workforce development. But before we can do that, we must fully understand the problem.
This means we need to start the conversation to get to real solutions. We need to complete research and we need to get opinions and insights from all stakeholders who are connected to the task of creating meaningful work environments.
This is important work that needs to begin now.
This is the purpose of TrailPaths.
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Meet Robert O. Martichenko
Robert Martichenko is a business leader, author, speaker, educator, and strategic advisor.
As a business leader with an entrepreneurial focus, Robert spent over fifteen years as the founder and CEO of the LeanCor Supply Chain Group. LeanCor was acquired in 2020, and Robert subsequently founded TrailPaths to focus on the People side of workforce development.
Robert is an industry thought leader, business and fiction author, and two-time winner of the Shingo Research Award for advancing the body of knowledge of Operational Excellence through his publications. In 2015, The Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) awarded Robert with the Distinguished Service Award, the highest recognition achievable for professionals in the supply chain industry.
Robert is an active speaker addressing topics such as Lean, Operations Management, the Future of Workforce Development, Narrative Leadership, Supply Chain Risk and Creating Meaningful Work Environments.