Sunny Gagliano
President

Sunny keeps the company running smoothly by providing leadership, developing strategic alliances, monitoring financial performance, and overseeing the design and production department.

From a young age, Sunny was a student of language, living abroad and learning multiple languages with a keen interest in the study of linguistics and language acquisition. Later, she owned and managed a number of restaurants where she learned what it takes to run a business and take care of customers. Then came a chance encounter with educational publishing, a short-term temp job at The Wright Group, and she was hooked. The Wright Group also recognized her talent and kept her on permanently.

Sunny worked her way through the Design/Production department at The Wright Group, creating the prepress department and engineering its first electronic file archive. As the company’s first Production Manager, she devised and oversaw the execution of all project schedules and effectively problem-solved challenges. When McGraw-Hill took over Wright Group, the growth continued. As Wright Group’s first Managing Editor and later the first Director of Publishing Operations, she wrote and secured approval on all publishing plan proposals, managed the publishing plan and the design and production departments, and worked with other McGraw-Hill business units on segmentwide initiatives.

In 2003, the transition of Wright Group to Chicago was complete and it was time to move on. A Seattle native, Sunny chose to stay in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, close to her family, majestic mountains, and favorite waterfalls. Trillium Publishing was born, and has been flourishing ever since. When Sunny’s not chained to her desk, you can find her chasing her teenage daughters around town, roughhousing with her two Bernese Mountain dogs, escaping to the wilderness, or exploring distant lands.

Susan Henderson
Publisher and Editorial Manager

Susan provides Trillium’s pedagogical foundation and is the editorial force behind all of our great products. She also develops and manages our diverse team of experienced editors.

Susan has more than 30 years of education and publishing experience both in the United States and Australia. After completing her course work for a Masters in Education at the University of Wisconsin, Susan was accepted for a program to teach in Western Australia for two years. Two years turned into 12 years, as Susan became involved with writing literacy curriculum for the Education Department of Western Australia and providing in-service training and support for classroom teachers. At this point, Susan realized she had both a knack and a love for creating successful classroom materials, so she moved to Sydney to work in publishing. There she developed her editorial skills at a legal and business publishing house, and soon found herself at Scholastic Australia. During her tenure at Scholastic, Susan implemented a successful publishing policy, developed award-winning math, spelling, and literacy programs, and managed a talented team of editors.

By then, more than 20 years had passed since Susan had left the States, and it was time to get back to family. So, in 1998, Susan moved to Seattle to work at The Wright Group as Manager of Special Projects. With Australia being ahead of the game in education pedagogy involving text structures, critical literacy, and comprehension, Susan brought with her specialized knowledge she could put to good use in creating sound, innovative educational products.

Since leaving The Wright Group, Susan has held senior editorial positions at Benchmark Education and Reading A–Z, before co-founding Trillium Publishing in 2003. For Susan, Trillium is a dream come true, with the opportunity to share her passion for education and concern for social justice with a brilliant team of like-minded, experienced, and knowledgeable colleagues.