What culture are you creating today…
that others will experience tomorrow?
Culture Matters.
Our Choices ripple into the Future.
You are INVITED…
to Journey beyond the familiar.
Discover new horizons. Experience history.
Challenge your thinking. Create your future.
A Journey Like No Other.
Two hundred and fifty years ago, leaders faced uncertainty, pressure, and division—much as we do today. They had people, purpose, and the courage to lead forward. Their experiences remind us that circumstances change. The human dynamics of leadership endure.
The past becomes powerful when it helps us see the present more clearly. The Colonial Institute Experience invites us to discover timeless principles that transform the way we think and serve today. Through history, conversation, and reflection, we gain new insights, challenge familiar thinking, and explore possibilities for the future.
At the heart of this Voyage are people. People with dreams. People with challenges. People who want to make a difference. Through Four Journeys, we explore the courage to CREATE, the wisdom to FOCUS, and the ability to GROW—turning lessons from history into choices that positively impact others.
A Voyage begins when people gather to learn, reflect, and create a better future together. Discover what the Colonial Institute Experience could create for your organization.
Step beyond the familiar and into the stories of people whose choices changed the course of history
The Colonial Institute Experience brings people together to challenge familiar thinking, discover timeless principles, and explore the beliefs and values that shape behaviors.
Through the Four Journeys, new perspectives become meaningful conversations—and conversations open possibilities for the culture people create together.
The Voyager’s Journey
One Extraordinary Experience.
JOURNEY 1
Discover New Horizons
Expand Thinking. Create Possibilities.
Challenge familiar ways of thinking and discover how language, perspective, and possibility influence the choices we make. Explore new ways to see opportunities, overcome breakdowns and create a better view of the future.
JOURNEY 2
History is Our Teacher
Experience History. Apply Wisdom.
Experience the decisions, challenges, and achievements of those who helped shape America. Discover timeless principles through their accomplishments and contradictions, and consider how those lessons apply to the decisions we face today.
JOURNEY 3
Outcomes By Design
Align Beliefs. Elevate Culture.
Explore how beliefs shape behaviors, behaviors produce outcomes, and outcomes create culture. Apply the CREATE, FOCUS, GROW framework to align people around purpose and turn new thinking into meaningful action.
JOURNEY 4
Onward
Behaviors Shape Tomorrow.
Every conversation, decision, and behavior create ripples that extend beyond today. Consider the culture your choices are creating and make commitments that positively impact others and shape the future.
More About the Experience
The Colonial Institute Experience invites people beyond the familiar—to step into history, examine consequential choices and discover principles that remain relevant today.
Through conversation, reflection and application, participants consider how beliefs become behaviors, behaviors shape outcomes and outcomes create culture.
The Experience moves discovery into action—strengthening people, teams and the cultures they create.
Step into History.
Discover the people, decisions, and defining moments that shaped America
Participants move beyond simply reading about history. Through private historical experiences, guided conversation, and reflection, they explore the choices, achievements, challenges, and contradictions of those who came before us.
These encounters invite participants to consider questions that remain relevant today: What principles guided the decisions of the past? How did individual choices influence others? What can those experiences teach us about the beliefs, behaviors, and culture we create in our own time?
Williamsburg, Virginia provides a setting where historical perspective opens the door to new thinking.
Our signature Colonial Institute Experience takes place in Williamsburg, Virginia, where history provides an extraordinary setting for discovery, reflection, and new perspectives. Hosted at Kingsmill Resort, the Experience brings people together discover timeless principles that inspire how we think. lead and serve today.
Rather than a traditional conference or classroom program, the multi-day Voyage combines discovery, history, reflection, conversation and application. Every participant brings unique experiences, perspectives, and questions to the Voyage. Those perspectives enrich the conversations and create opportunities to learn from history and from one another.
The objective is to discover what its timeless principles can mean for the choices we make today, and the culture others will experience tomorrow.
The Signature Experience
The Framework for moving from possibility to action:
Your Voyage begins before you arrive.
Some discoveries are found in the Voyage. Others are discovered within us. Many emerge through the people with whom we share the Voyage.
The Voyager's Guide is a personal companion throughout the Colonial Institute Experience, providing a place to capture reflections, insights, questions, possibilities, and commitments.
As participants move through the Four Journeys, the Guide helps preserve meaningful discoveries and provides an opportunity to connect historical lessons with their own experiences and aspirations.
It encourages participants to reflect on what they have learned, consider the beliefs and behaviors they wish to carry forward, and identify how their choices can positively influence others.
The Voyager's Guide is more than a record of the Experience. It is a resource for carrying its discoveries beyond the Voyage and into everyday decisions, conversations, and relationships.
The Voyage may end… the discoveries continue.
The Experience comes to you.
The Principles Travel.
The Colonial Institute Experience extends beyond Williamsburg - bringing fresh perspectives, meaningful conversations, and practical insights directly to your organization.
From focused executive sessions and team experiences to keynote presentations, each Voyage is designed around your people, priorities, and desired outcomes.
Meet Steve…
Four Decades of Experience.
One Enduring Lesson.
Steven D. Shatrich
Founder & Executive Guide
The Colonial Institute I CFG Leadership Group
Executive Profile
We Are ALL in the People Business
Steve Shatrich has spent more than four decades working with people—building businesses, guiding teams, and helping others succeed. His career began in commercial banking in 1981 with the Firestone Bank. He was an executive leader with Bank One, PNC, and Huntington Bank, where he served as President of Commercial Bank Markets for Huntington Equipment Finance. Across different organizations, markets, and mergers, one lesson has remained constant: people shape the experience of a business. Steve believes the best results begin with serving colleagues, listening to clients, and giving people the opportunity to do their best work.
The Colonial Institute
Steve founded the Colonial Institute to bring people together around lessons from history that still matter today. Through an experience rooted in Williamsburg, participants explore how choices, conversations, and behaviors influence others—and consider what they will carry forward. The Institute invites a simple question: “What culture are you creating today…that others will experience tomorrow?”
A Personal Approach
Steve sees leadership as service. Whether working with a new colleague, an executive team, or an entire organization, he starts with people. He is known for practical ideas, engaging conversations, and helping teams move from their current view to a better view. His work through CFG Leadership Group includes team experiences, sales design, cultural integration, and executive mentoring. The Colonial Institute builds on that experience with a new opportunity to learn from the past and serve the future.
Career Profile
Current
Founder — Colonial Institute
President — CFG Leadership Group / CFG Associates, Inc.
Executive Career
President, Commercial Bank Markets — Huntington Equipment Finance (2018–2023)
National Director, Bank Markets / Chief Growth Officer — PNC Equipment Finance (2010–2018)
Commercial Bank Managing Director, SVP — KeyBank, Northeast Ohio (2007–2010)
Regional Sales Director, SVP — Sky Bank (2002–2006)
President — Community Financial Group (1999–2002)
Executive Vice President / National Director, Bank Markets — Banc One Leasing Corp. (1990–1999)
President — Brokers Investment Corp. (1986–1990)
Commercial Loan Officer — Bank One (1981–1986)
Education & Professional Development
University of Akron — B.B.A., Marketing; postgraduate coursework in Finance
Disney Leadership Institute (1997)
Senn-Delaney Leadership Facilitator (1998)
Consultative Research and Design (1999)
Breakthrough Leadership Facilitator (2001)
Selected Recognition
Gallup Award — PNC (2013)
Chairman’s Circle — PNC (2012)
Extraordinary Performance Award — PNC (2011)
Chairman’s Award Runner-up — KeyBank (2010)
Areas of Experience
Building and aligning teams
Culture and organizational integration
Sales Outcomes by Design and client relationships
Executive mentoring and coaching
Breakthrough Leadership for Growth
Guiding Beliefs
Serve Boldly-Positively impact others
Think Forward-Create new possibilities
Advance Good-Every voice shapes the future
Professional Acknowledgements
“Steve Shatrich is a man of integrity, vision and down to earth commonsense, a rare combination in business.”
Chairman and CEO- CRD Inc.
Winner-Inc. 500
“Steve came highly recommended to us with a track record as a dynamic presenter and facilitator of culture progression. He thoroughly and efficiently assessed our situation and created a program for us to self-define team values, behaviors, and culture. He also did this in a way that engaged every member of our team with 100% ground-up participation. Months after the conclusion of his program, my team members, even some previously less engaged, are still using some of Steve’s turns of phrase and are modeling the discussed behaviors/values. This experience has been a lasting catalyst of positive growth. To say that Steve under promised and overdelivered would truly be an understatement.”
President, Ohio Hospital Medical Staff
“We are ALL in the People Business.”
The Next Voyage Could Be Yours.
Discover what the Colonial Institute Experience could create for your organization.
Colonial Institute is an independently operated educational and professional development organization and a registered trade name of CFG Associates, Inc., an Ohio corporation that has elected Subchapter S tax treatment.
Colonial Institute is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Colonial Williamsburg or the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.