About
For more than two decades, Trudy Wastweet worked inside organizations across agriculture, public policy, and nonprofit leadership. She’s led strategy. She’s run operations. She’s sat at the table when priorities compete, when teams don’t quite line up, and when leaders are expected to move things forward anyway.
She knows what it feels like when progress stalls.
When decisions take too long.
When a capable team isn’t quite moving in the same direction.
And she's learned what it takes to change that.
TruDirection was founded in late 2025 to address the challenges Trudy saw throughout her leadership career: capable teams doing important work but struggling to move forward together. After years in senior leadership roles, she saw how often progress slowed—not because of strategy but because priorities weren’t fully shared, ownership wasn’t clear, or decisions stalled.
She created TruDirection to help leaders close that gap by creating clarity, structure, and steady guidance so teams can align, follow through, and make meaningful progress.
Throughout her career – including roles as Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Operating Officer—Trudy became known for her ability to bring clarity to complicated situations. She helped leadership teams navigate uncertainty, set direction, build practical systems for accountability, and move from discussion to real, measurable progress.
Clients (and her previous direct reports) often describe her as steady and discerning—the kind of person who can hold complexity without getting overwhelmed by it. She doesn’t rush to answers. She asks better questions and creates space for honest conversations that will lead to better decisions.
Trudy brings a steady, thoughtful presence to the table. She has a way of cutting through noise without creating friction. She listens closely. Trudy pays attention to what’s getting in the way…what’s unclear, what’s unspoken, what’s assumed but never defined. Then she helps leaders and teams deal with it directly.
Trudy found her own path to clarity and self-awareness through CliftonStrengths. Gaining fluency in what’s strong and not wrong with individuals and teams enabled Trudy to become a thoughtful coach and more effective team leader. Today, she is a Certified Facilitator of The 6 Types of Working Genius.
When she’s not working with leadership teams, you likely will find her cooking for friends and family, traveling, or walking her southern Minnesota neighborhood with her handsome Australian Shepherd, Harley. She remains an active partner in her family’s beef cattle farm in South Dakota; that farm is also home to her expanding gardening hobby where she favors heirloom tomatoes, decorative pumpkins, and an expanding assortment of cutting flowers.
Trudy Wastweet has spent her career in rooms where the stakes are real. For more than two decades, she worked inside organizations across agriculture, public policy, and nonprofit leadership. She’s led strategy. She’s run operations. She’s sat at the table when priorities compete, when teams don’t quite line up, and when leaders are expected to move things forward anyway.
She knows what it feels like when progress stalls.
When decisions take too long.
When a capable team isn’t quite moving in the same direction.
And she also knows what it takes to change that.
TruDirection was founded in late 2025 to address the challenges Trudy saw throughout her leadership career: capable teams doing important work but struggling to move forward together. After years in senior leadership roles, she saw how often progress slowed—not because of strategy but because priorities weren’t fully shared, ownership wasn’t clear, or decisions stalled. She created TruDirection to help leaders close that gap by creating clarity, structure, and steady guidance so teams can align, follow through, and make meaningful progress.
Throughout her career—including roles as Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Operating Officer—Trudy became known for her ability to bring clarity to complicated situations. She helped leadership teams navigate uncertainty, set direction, build practical systems for accountability, and move from discussion to real, measurable progress.
But what clients value most isn’t just her experience—it’s how she shows up.
Clients (and her previous direct reports) often describe her as steady and discerning—the kind of person who can hold complexity without getting overwhelmed by it. She doesn’t rush to answers. She asks better questions and creates space for honest conversations that will lead to better decisions.
Trudy brings a steady, thoughtful presence to the table. She has a way of cutting through noise without creating friction. She listens closely. Trudy pays attention to what’s getting in the way…what’s unclear, what’s unspoken, what’s assumed but never defined. Then she helps leaders and teams deal with it directly.
Trudy found her own path to clarity and self-awareness through CliftonStrengths. Gaining fluency in what’s strong and not wrong with individuals and teams enabled Trudy to become a thoughtful coach and more effective team leader. Today, she is a Certified Facilitator of The 6 Types of Working Genius.
When she’s not working with leadership teams, you likely will find her cooking for friends and family, traveling, or walking her southern Minnesota neighborhood with her handsome Australian Shepherd, Harley. She remains an active partner in her family’s beef cattle farm in South Dakota; that farm is also home to her expanding gardening hobby…where she favors heirloom tomatoes, decorative pumpkins, and an expanding assortment of cutting flowers.