Diedre L. Windsor
Operating discipline and the client relationship. Accountable end to end.
September 21, 2026
You've earned the distinction. Now let's make it unmistakable.
Presented by
Windsor Group LLC (prime) + Mark Bohay Consulting LLC (sub) + Westmoreland Group LLC (sub)
Diedre L. Windsor · Mark Bohay · Dr. Courtnee Jordan-Cox · Dr. Sharron D. Credle · Margaret Tucker, JD · Dr. Sophoria Westmoreland
Institutional Brand Strategy,
Identity Refresh & Implementation Prepared for the University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Identity Refresh & Implementation Prepared for the University of Maryland, Baltimore County
08
Who is doing this work
Who is responsible for each part of the engagement, and who does UMBC call?
Named roles.
One accountable prime.
Mark Bohay
Higher-ed pattern recognition. Translates positioning into a usable system.
Dr. Courtnee Jordan-Cox
Audit and synthesis. Turns evidence into usable tensions and opportunities.
Dr. Sharron D. Credle
Higher-ed engagement lens. Designs rooms where candor is possible and productive.
Margaret Tucker, JD
Operating rhythm. Runs the decision architecture so nothing stalls between phases.
Dr. Sophoria Westmoreland
Leads project administration: coordination, documentation, reporting, and campus logistics.
02
Our Understanding
UMBC has already earned its distinctiveness.
- 01 Inclusive excellence, from the Meyerhoff lineage forward.
- 02 R1 research posture with national reach.
- 03 Existing equity in a visual identity worth refining, not replacing.
- 04 A brief that is clear about the mandate: refinement, not reinvention.
02
What we mean by unmistakable
The assignment is not to reinvent it.
The assignment is to make it
unmistakable
Every design decision that follows serves that one word.
03
Why this moment
Fall 2026 sets the brief.
The strategic plan should not become another input document. It should help establish the institutional priorities the refreshed brand needs to express.
06
The proving-ground principle
This is not a website redesign. It's about what comes first.
The web is where we pressure-test — not where the work ends.
03
How the work gets made
We build it from what's already here.
We're not chasing a trend. This should still look right in ten years.
01
Start with evidence
Courtnee's discovery work drives the creative direction.
02
Get inspired by UMBC
The Meyerhoff lineage, the research posture, the language already here.
03
Accessibility early
Universal design at the front of the process, not at the end.
04
Custom, because of how we're staffed
Mark leads the engagement and does the work himself.
05
Work alongside UMBC
Principals in every meeting, and UMBC makes the calls.
02
Belonging
Belonging is a design choice.
Inclusive excellence isn't measured by who applies. It's measured by who feels expected.
- For the first-generation student walking a campus their family has never seen.
- For the returning adult finishing what they started.
- For the graduate researcher whose work doesn't fit a template.
- For the faculty and the staff who make it what it is.
- For the alum in year thirty, still telling the story.
- For the neighbor, the employer, and the partner who want to build something here.
Different doors. Same house.
04
How we'll find the answer
Research runs with UMBC.
01
Audit
Use what UMBC already knows.
Complete master audit across the spaces where UMBC identity lives: brand surfaces, communications, and existing research and data.
02
Community Input
Find what we don't yet know.
On-campus and virtual focus groups. Leadership, faculty, student, family, alumni, and constituent voices. Deliberate representation at the core.
03
Benchmarking
Understand the landscape and context.
Competitive benchmarking across USM and national mid-sized R1 peers.
Interpretation reveals strategic opportunities, patterns, and tensions, comparing where we are to where we want to be.
04
The research principle
We are not researching toward consensus. We are researching toward clarity.
Every choice that follows serves that one word.
07
Technical Approach
Four connected phases. Deliberate overlap.
01
Months 1–4
Discovery & Research
Listen, audit, synthesize, define the opportunity.
02
Months 4–8
Strategy & Positioning
Evidence becomes a differentiated position and messaging framework.
03
Months 5–11 (overlaps 02)
Creative Development
Explore, test, refine, and codify the visual expression.
04
Months 11–16
Implementation & Rollout
Tools, guidance, applications, and adoption path into market.
Creative exploration can expose strategic questions, but final creative direction does not outrun approved positioning.
Every deliverable in the RFP scope is mapped to a phase and to a named owner. The June asset date is treated as immovable; interim milestones flex in partnership with UMBC.
08
Implementation
The colors don't matter if nobody uses them.
01
Involvement
People who help shape something don't need persuading later.
02
Rationale
The reasoning behind every choice travels with the assets.
03
Ease
The on-brand option is the fastest route to a finished piece.
04
Friction
We meet friction during research, not at launch.
09
Proof, not promise
Windsor + MB, already in delivery.
USDA · $2.2B
Discrimination Financial Assistance Program
National, multi-channel brand system across a complex stakeholder environment. Radio, digital, print, social, outdoor, in-person.
Windsor prime · MB sub · Four years side-by-side
78%
Applications nationwide
of all applications submitted came from Team Windsor territories.
$1.4B
Assistance awarded
in Team Windsor territories to farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners.
72%
Of program funds
of the total federal program funds awarded flowed through the Team Windsor system.
Higher-ed depth (MB)
Live · MD
Notre Dame of Maryland University
Baltimore-area engagement. Drupal-to-WordPress migration, custom design system, departmental autonomy within a central system.
Ongoing
Maryland University of Integrative Health
Brand + digital transformation, 5,000+ page migration, CRM integration. 80M impressions, 20K prospects, +31% YoY.
Consortium
MarylandOnline
Multi-institution digital modernization into a coherent contemporary expression across Maryland.
You are not hiring a team assembled for this bid.
You are hiring an operating team with relevant institutional experience.
Four years · one rhythm
10
Why Windsor
The firm was built for this.
Windsor is what inclusive excellence looks like as a going concern.
Windsor Group LLC was founded and led by Diedre L. Windsor. Retired Army officer, 82nd Airborne, former Senior Executive Service. She hired the firm the way she'd deploy a mission: mission first, people always. That instinct decides the payroll, the client roster, and the room the work gets done in.
Hiring
Living wage, deliberate.
Wages set to retain people rather than fill seats. Over 100 employees. Recruiting by default, retention as the point.
Teaming
Small & diverse, by default.
Windsor primes and brings in an independent MBE alongside specialist consultants. That's an operating principle, not a staffing shortcut.
Growth
Inc. 5000, six years running.
Consecutive years on the list. The way Windsor hires and teams isn't a cost of doing business. It's the reason the firm keeps scaling.
Range
Federal, public, private.
USDA, DoD, HHS, VA, and industry. Every stakeholder audience the country has, on programs where the accountability is real.
Not a mission statement. A firm.
MDOT MBE/DBE
SDVOSB
WOSB
EDWOSB
SBA 8(a)
WBENC
NaVOBA
11
Clarifying questions
You asked two questions. Here are our answers.
01 · Inclusive excellence
How would you address inclusive excellence, and how does it play out with your team?
In the design. Universal design at the front. The brand has to work for the first-generation student, the donor, the graduate researcher, the faculty member, the alumna, and the local partner.
In the research. Deliberate about who we hear from, including the voices that rarely self-select into a survey.
In the team. Windsor Group LLC is a small, minority-, woman-, and service-disabled-veteran-owned business, and we bring that same intentionality to how we hire and build our teams. On USDA DFAP, the barrier was never eligibility, it was access. So we went directly to the communities we were there to serve.
02 · The MBE relationship
Your relationship with the MBE, and what the prime and sub(s) will be doing.
Three firms are at work here, and each owns a distinct part of the engagement.
Windsor Group LLC primes and carries the research. Courtnee leads discovery, instruments, and synthesis, while Sharron runs the focus groups and facilitation before taking implementation and adoption in the final phase. Diedre holds contract authority and is the person UMBC calls. The 10% on the form is the maximum self-performance MDOT lets an MBE prime credit toward the goal, not a measure of the work Windsor is doing.
Mark Bohay Consulting handles the creative and keeps the engagement moving. Mark leads strategy, positioning, identity, and the system himself, and Margaret owns the schedule, the deliverables, and the reporting cadence UCM prefers.
Westmoreland Group manages project administration and light analytics. Coordination, documentation, reporting, and the logistics behind research sessions and campus training. Independent MDOT MBE at 10%, with separate ownership and no affiliation with Windsor.
None of these relationships are new. Windsor and Westmoreland have delivered together before, and Windsor and MB have four years side by side, so nobody on this team is learning how to work with anybody else on UMBC's schedule.
11
Close / discussion
Thank you
You've already earned the distinction.
Refinement, not reinvention.
Digital as the proving ground.
Proof, not promise.
Primary contact
Diedre L. Windsor
Founder & CEO · Windsor Group LLC · Prime accountability
240-600-0149
·
diedre@windsorgroup-llc.com
