About Us

At Nucleus Learning, people are our passion.

We aim to support you in retaining and attracting top talent and a workplace where people have the tools, training, and resources to succeed. With over 60 years of combined experience advising on HR, Culture, Employee Engagement, and Training, and Development best practices, we partner with clients to create a work environment that employees are excited to be in every day.

You'll enjoy working with us if:

  • You want to improve your ability to retain and attract engaged employees by investing in them

  • You want to create clear career development opportunities

  • You want to reduce your training time and cost by 50—75% while increasing training effectiveness

We aren't a fit for you if:

  • You embrace the approach, "We've always done it this way."

  • Investing in your workforce isn't a priority for your leadership team

  • You want to continue to incur turnover costs of 50-200% of your terminating employees' annual pay

Training and Learning Simplified

Meet the Nucleus Learning Team

  • Karen Hughey

    Co-Founder, CEO

    After earning a Master's in Business and a Master's of Human Resources and Labor Relations from Michigan State University, Karen worked in HR and Learning and Development at large companies, including Chrysler, Chrysler Financial, and OptumRx.

    Seven years ago, she founded KR-HR, an HR Advising firm providing practical, simplified HR solutions to business owners and leaders.

    Then Karen and co-founder (and son) Rob Hughey founded Nucleus Learning, creating active-designed learning and development programs instead of typical passive learning training. In addition, they specialize in creating video videos. They combined the value of Career Path Design, job skills training, emerging leaders, and leadership development to help leaders engage their team members with the tools, training, and resources needed to succeed.

  • Rob Hughey

    Co-Founder, Creative, Video

    Rob is the co-founder and head of videography/photography for Nucleus Learning. Rob brings an immense passion for capturing stories through visual. What started out as just a pastime hobby quickly turned into a role with the startup he co-founded with his mom, Karen. Wherever there is a moment worthy of capturing a photo or video, you’ll likely find Rob in an awkward position.

    “Working with organizations that place a strong emphasis on their people has been so rewarding” he said. “If I can play just a small role in capturing meaningful content that provides individuals an opportunity to be successful in their life, count me in.”

  • Tony Adrignola

    HR, Culture and Training Advisor

    Tony began his career in human resources 15 years ago at Springfield Public Schools. Digging deeper, he earned a master's degree in industrial and organizational psychology to understand the theories behind what HR does and how to do it better.

    Before becoming a consultant, he worked as an HR Manager and developed training programs for large organizations at all levels. During the last seven years of consulting with companies of all sizes, he has learned that people are the key to supercharging your organization.

  • Ian Casas

    Videographer

    Ian S. Casas’s professional career spans over 23 years, first in Hollywood production, having worked on over 100 film & television productions, including such feature films as Anchor Man, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, National Treasure, and War of the Worlds; award-winning episodic dramas: Mad Men, Bones, CSI: NY, House.

    Ian recently added to his experience working at his father’s Human Resources Consulting firm. That experience and his video expertise are a natural fit for Nucleus Learning’s goal of helping clients create engaging training and development programs and videos that their employees want to learn from.

    Ian works as the company’s video technology specialist sharing his years of camera and filming expertise with the team.

  • Barb Allen

    Training Consultant for Construction and Manufacturing

    After a 30-year career in Construction Management, Barb founded her company, Levocity, to help individuals and companies in traditionally male-dominated construction and manufacturing industries to foster a productive and diverse environment for all employees.

    Barb is sharing her speaking, training and consulting expertise with Nucleus Learning's client's training and development projects.

  • Dr. Shawn Foley

    Management Consultant and Founder, Foleyworks

    Dr. Shawn Foley is a management consultant and the Founder of Foleyworks. He and his team are collaborating with the Nucleus Learning team to bring their focus on the support mechanisms for success, including education solutions, metrics and measurement, change management, organization development, program analysis and evaluation, and the isolation of initiative impact and influence.

Let’s work together!