Our Trainers

Jeff Walkowski is the principal of QualCore.com Inc., a Minneapolis-based consulting firm providing traditional (in-person) and online qualitative research services to a wide range of Fortune 1,000 companies. He was schooled as a quantitative expert and began his career as a statistician, but he discovered his natural talents as a moderator and gradually evolved into a qualitative specialist.

Jeff’s specialty is online qualitative. He has moderated over 1,000 online sessions (real-time text chats, video chats, and multi-day message boards); he has spoken about online qualitative research at conferences globally; and he has published articles on the subject. Jeff co-chaired the Qualitative Research Consultants Association’s Online Qualitative Research Task Force in the early 2000s, co-edited Qualitative Research Online (Research Publishers LLC, 2004), and is co-founder (with Casey Sweet) of the Online Moderator Training Institute.

He is also the author of the Qualitative Research module (launched in 2019) that is part of the MRII’s and University of Georgia’s Principles of Marketing Research online certificate program.

Jeff holds an MBA from Southern Methodist University, and an MS (Educational Research) and BA (Psychology) from Southern Connecticut State University. He is on the faculty of the RIVA Training Institute, and is a Research Rockstar Trainer. Jeff is a member of the Qualitative Research Consultants Association and the Insights Association.

Jeff resides in Minneapolis.  He enjoys film festivals, shoveling snow in the winter, and donuts.

Mary Beth Solomon is the principal of Solomon Solutions, a qualitative research consulting firm which has helped a broad range of companies better understand their customers’ perspectives, behaviors, and brand interactions. Since 1993, qualitative research has provided an outlet for her inquiring mind. Mary Beth has conducted thousands of online and in-person interviews and by 1994 was among the first moderators to use the online data collection method across a variety of industries. She is a co-trainer and partner of the Online Moderator Training Institute.

Mary Beth is a member of the Qualitative Research Consultants Association, and has served the organization in various capacities, including as travel editor for QRCA VIEWS. She is also a member of the User Experience Professionals’ Association and the American Society of Trial Consultants. Mary Beth’s articles about online methodologies have appeared in Marketing Research Magazine and Quirk’s Marketing Research Review.

Mary Beth holds an M.A. in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University and a B.A. in English from Chatham University. She lives in the New York City metropolitan area.

Mary Beth is a fitness enthusiast, fiction writer and travel blogger. In her downtime, Mary Beth tries out new recipes, listens to podcasts, and spends time with her furry and less-furry family and friends.

Casey Sweet co-founded the Online Moderator Training Institute with Jeff Walkowski in 2002. She is now fully retired. She had been the principal of Quesst Qualitative Research. She spent over 30 years in marketing spanning qualitative research, new product development, sales, and direct response marketing in a wide array of industries and categories. She created Quesst in 1994 to focus exclusively in qualitative marketing research. She conducted focus groups and in-depth interviews "online and in-person" with equal enthusiasm and expertise.

Beginning in 1998, she was a thought-leader in the exploration and design of online focus group and online bulletin board research. She wrote articles on the subject for several publications including Quirk's, Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, Court Call, and MRA Alert!. She had given presentations at QRCA, AMA, and MRA (now IA) conferences and chapters.

She was very active in the Qualitative Research Consultants Association, with roles as a Board member, Chair of the Online Qualitative Research Task Force, Conference Chair (twice), and Chair of the Membership Committee. Additionally, she was a member of the American Marketing Association.

Casey holds an MBA from Northeastern University (Marketing and Finance), a BS (Accounting) from New Hampshire College, and is certified in Neuro Linguistic Programming.

Casey has retired with her husband to New Hampshire, where she enjoys gardening, following politics, and being amused by her dog Foxxy.