Introducing Our First Distinguished Cheetah Alum – Significant Impact:
Barbara Sleeper, PMP
Every now and then, someone comes along who perfectly embodies what it means to be a Cheetah. Not fast for the sake of speed – but fast because their clarity, compassion, and capability allow them to move through the world with purpose.
For us, that person is Barbara Sleeper, PMP.
Barbara has been a Project Management Professional (PMP) since 2004, and she has lived those skills every day for more than two decades. Watch Barb’s tribute video – Click Here
As a single mom, she project-managed life itself – shepherding her children into becoming successful adults who are leaders in their fields and now watching her grandchildren launch into college.
When her parents’ health rapidly declined, Barbara used her Cheetah-level planning skills to relocate them across the country with precision and empathy. She handled a complex, emotional, logistically intense project in record time – because that’s what Cheetahs do.
Her professional life has been equally remarkable: a career in science writing and using that to support renowned photo journalists and adventure travel journalism, followed by a reinvention into the steady editorial backbone of a community magazine. While print media struggled, Barbara helped keep the publication thriving.
And she’s not slowing down. Her newest project? A community playground built in one of the most environmentally regulated areas in her region, requiring coordination across agencies, neighbors, funders, regulators, and state-level grant systems. She made it happen.
Barbara has also spent almost six decades bringing her high-school classmates together for reunions – adapting to changing personalities, needs, and life stages with humor and patience. Most people underestimate how complex this is. Project managers don’t.
Barbara is the kind of person who holds communities together. She is the quiet infrastructure that makes society work. She is our first Distinguished Cheetah Alum – Significant Impact Honoree.
We are very proud to call her a Distinguished Cheetah Alum.