About Us

Founding Partners

Sheila Ramsey, Ph.D. Sheila Ramsey, Ph.D., principal consultant of the Crestone Institute is known internationally for her work in the field of intercultural relations, international leadership development, team building and the facilitation of individual and group creativity and innovation. Sheila is a skilled facilitator and consultant with 25 years of experience. Her forum for this work has been in the corporate sector, education, and in the not-for-profit arena since 1975. Dr. Ramsey has a Ph.D. in communication as well as a background in theater and anthropology. Her training and consulting is focused on enabling clients to utilize their creativity and unique abilities to develop workplace effectiveness and global partnerships.

Dr. Ramsey has designed and implemented large-group participatory change events, international leadership-development seminars, intercultural technology-transfer projects, multicultural work-force development seminars, team-building and total quality management designs and orientation for overseas-living programs.

For seven years she was on the faculty of the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication in Portland, Oregon and is a Senior Fellow of SIETAR, (Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research) Japan, Tokyo Branch. Her publications are in the areas of nonverbal behavior, training methodologies, communication-style differences between Japanese and Americans, creativity and managing change.

She has worked as a professional photographer, studied as a potter’s apprentice in Mashiko, Japan and is professionally certified in the Enneagram of Personality. She currently lives in Crestone, CO.

In her work, she has seen how those who make a commitment to bring forth the highest and best in themselves are also those who are most creative in their own lives and inspiring to others.

Sheila Ramsey, Ph.D.
PO Box 1201
Crestone, CO 81131 U.S.A.
Phone: +1 202 222 5554
Fax: by arrangement
E mail: sramsey@plseminars.com

Barbara F. Schaetti, Ph.D. Barbara F. Schaetti, Ph.D., principal consultant with Transition Dynamics has a particular passion for helping people cultivate their core intercultural capacity. She specializes in multicultural team development, the creation of inclusive communities, expatriate and leadership coaching, and the development of a personal practice to leverage intercultural competence. Barbara is internationally recognized as an innovative leader in the field of expatriate and repatriate family services.

Dr. Schaetti helps her clients maximize the personally and professionally transformative potential inherent in the experience of living and working across cultures. She recognizes that precisely because such a lifestyle is fraught with ambiguity, frequently confusing intercultural encounters, and often significant isolation from known support systems, it presents us with unparalleled opportunities to "wake up" to our authentic selves.

A member of the faculty of the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication and of the ICI/UOP Master of Arts in Intercultural Relations, both in Portland, Oregon, Dr. Schaetti is also the lead coach for the spouse coaching program of the Global Coaches Network (www.globalcoaches.com). A founding member of the Board of Directors of the Families in Global Transition Conference (www.figt.org), Barbara has served in several capacities including as Secretary and as a member of the Executive for four years, and as program chair or co-chair for the six conferences held between 2000 and 2007.

Dr. Schaetti grew up in ten countries on five continents, and moved internationally twelve times by the age of twenty-two. She has dual-nationality (American and Swiss), and speaks and reads French in addition to English. She holds a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences/Intercultural Communication (Cultural Identity Development), an M.A. in Whole Systems Design (Intercultural Conflict Resolution), and a B.A. in International Political Science. Earlier in her career, Barbara worked in multilcultural community meditation and as a diversity trainer with U.S. corporations and government agencies.

Barbara F. Schaetti, Ph.D.
Transition Dynamics
2448 NW 63rd St.
Seattle WA 98107 U.S.A.
Tel: +1 206 789 3290
Fax: by arrangement
Email: bfschaetti@plseminars.com

Gordon Watanabe Ed.D. Gordon Watanabe Ed.D., is a professor emeritus of education and former special assistant to the president for intercultural relations at Whitworth University in Spokane, WA, USA. He is a member of the faculty of the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication.

Dr. Watanabe’s work has focused in the field of intercultural education for the past nineteen years. While starting his career as a public school teacher, he was asked to become a trainer for the Washington Education Association in their Minority Involvement Program. This event began his facilitation and diversity work while also maintaining his commitment to improvement in education. Dr. Watanabe’s educational background includes: undergraduate majors in biology and psychology; a masters in counseling; as well as a doctorate in education.

At Whitworth’s School of Education, Dr. Watanabe was involved with an innovative master’s program where he taught multicultural education and advanced educational psychology. Additionally, he had major responsibility for the nationally known multicultural program which sends education students to teach abroad and within country, in cultures very different from their own. His former intercultural work was as the Director of International Student Affairs, Director of Minority Student Affairs, and the Asian Pacific American Counselor & Head Minority Counselor.

Dr. Watanabe’s work is founded on the basic principle that understanding one’s self is critical for successful cross-cultural negotiations. He is committed to innovation and creativity, and facilitates organizational thinking and paradigmatic shifts for cultural change at the institutional and individual levels.

Dr. Watanabe’s diversity facilitation work includes educational institutions, corporate entities, and community programs.

Gordon Watanabe Ed.D.
Spokane, WA U.S.A.
Tel: +1 509 777 4373
Fax: +1 509 777 3785
Email: gwatanabe@plseminars.com

Facilitators

Jin Abe, M.A. Counseling in Higher Education, is a former “salary-man” in Japan and a licensed counselor in Michigan who advised international students at Western Michigan University for 7 years before returning to Japan in 2005. Currently, he is an assistant professor/international education advisor at Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, Japan. The 2003 internship experience at the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication was his introduction to Personal Leadership as an intercultural communication tool. In 2004, as he was balancing out the needs of his family to return to Japan and career promotion in the U.S., Personal Leadership and its visioning process had a personal impact on regaining a sense of congruency, making Personal Leadership an integral part of his everyday life.

Tina Johnson is Director of the Experiential Learning Center at Randolph College (formerly R-MWC) in Lynchburg, VA, where her primary responsibilities include coordinating study abroad programs and short-term seminars as well as working with international faculty. She studied abroad in Reading, England, and is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, Russia 1996-98. In 2004, she first encountered Personal Leadership through the Master of Arts in Intercultural Relations (MAIR) program jointly offered by the Intercultural Communication Institute (ICI), Portland, OR, and the University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA. She has introduced the practice of PL to study abroad participants, college residence life staff, intern teachers, and students in the Susan F. Davenport leadership program. She believes that Personal Leadership, which is the focus of her current master’s thesis project on the importance of reflective practice in cross-cultural adjustment, offers valuable applications within the education abroad arena.

Adair Linn Nagata, Ph.D. teaches, facilitates, and coaches with an emphasis on integrative transformative learning through Personal Leadership. She earned her doctorate in Human Development from the Fielding Graduate University (Santa Barbara, CA) and has been teaching intercultural communication at the university level in Japan and the USA since 2002. She was formerly Professor of Intercultural Communication at the Rikkyo University Graduate School of Intercultural Communication in Tokyo, Japan and is now teaching at Waseda University in the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies in Tokyo, and the Master of Arts in Intercultural Relations (MAIR) program jointly offered by the Intercultural Communication Institute (ICI), Portland, OR, and the University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA. Her work focuses on self-reflexivity, and she coined the term bodymindfulness, which emerged while she was doing her dissertation that was a Mindful Inquiry about emotional resonance and presence. Her publications emphasize the cultivation of consciousness and communicative competence in intercultural relationships and for intercultural researchers. Both her personal and professional activities give her many opportunities to practice her motto, "Peace begins within."

Esther Louie, M.S., is the assistant dean for students at Whitworth College, Spokane, WA, where her responsibilities include student leadership development for undergraduate students. She consults and trains in the areas of intercultural communication, leadership development, and community- and team-building for city, state, and federal agencies and in higher education across the Northwest US and in Mexico. She is the intern coordinator for the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication (SIIC), Portland, OR; serves as president-elect for the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research (SIETAR); and is president of the Women in Higher Education Roundtable, 2005. Esther enhances her professional career and personal life by teaching and practicing Personal Leadership.

Jan O’Brien is an intercultural consultant and coach who has lived and worked extensively overseas, in particular in South-East Asia. She is a UK/US dual national and president of Jan O’Brien & Associates, Intercultural Consulting, based in Houston, Texas. She specializes in intercultural communication and leadership training and coaching, both in the US and internationally. Jan has worked as a core instructor with the University of Houston, Executive Coaching Institute and is an accredited associate of the ICS-CONNECT communications program and assessment tool. She is a board member of SIETAR Houston (Society for Intercultural Education, Training & Research) and a member of SIETAR USA and the IAC (International Association of Coaches). She is committed to incorporating Personal Leadership into all of her work in order to enhance her clients’ ability to interact effectively across cultures.

Heather Robinson, M.A. believes leadership that balances power and compassion is the profound need of the time. For over 25 years she has supported multinational corporate teams to both get work done and create communities that are innovative and meaningful. She coaches global leaders to effectively respond to the dynamism and uncertainty of changing times with courage, curiosity and clarity.

Clients include Microsoft, Nokia, Pepsico, Boeing, Daimler, SIEMENS, Robert Bosch, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novartis, Deutsche Telekom, and Abbott. From 2001 through 2004 Heather was dean for the Strategic Edge, an executive development program for the major European aerospace companies, including EADS, BAE Systems, Alenia-Aerospazio, Stork/Fokker and SAAB Aerospace. She currently is part of the team rolling out the Cisco Advanced Management Series in the US, Europe and Asia. Heather has taught at the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication in Portland, Oregon, the Georgetown/ESADE Global Executive MBA program and the University of Washington International MBA program.

A frequent speaker at international conferences, Heather has several titles in McGraw Hill’s Training Resource Guides, The Consultant’s Big Book of Organization Development Tools, and the Human Resource Press’ Intercultural Training Guide. She is the co-author of Cultural Detective: Switzerland and Cultural Detective: Blended Culture and is a facilitator of Cultural Detective certification workshops.

In 1995 Heather was elected to the governing council of the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research (SIETAR), served as president of SIETAR USA from 2003 through 2005 and was one of the co-founders of SIETAR India. In 2007 Heather received the SIETAR Europa “Dedication to and Embodiment of Intercultural Principles Award”.  

The child of a Swiss mother and an American father, Heather has lived in India, Turkey, Switzerland, Germany, South Africa, England, Greece, Israel and Pakistan.  She currently resides in the US. Heather has an MA in Whole Systems Design with a specialization in Organization Systems Renewal from Antioch University where her area of concentration was Strategic Planning and Systems Design. She is also a certified Integral Coach. Heather came to the practice of Personal Leadership in 2003 and realized she had found “the missing link” in her work as an OD practitioner working across borders. She saw that intentionally cultivating the capacity to sustain an appreciative, learning and receptive orientation in the midst of the unexpected, opened the door to emergent solutions in her own life and those of her clients’ and their organizations. Heather is particularly interested in the application of Personal Leadership in corporate settings and the relationship of Personal Leadership to other intercultural, leadership and organization development methods and models. She is currently working with Diannne Hofner Saphiere and Barbara Schaetti on a “mash-up” of Personal Leadership and Cultural Detective and is exploring its relationship to the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS).

Megumi Sugihara, M.A., is an independent interculturalist based in Seattle, Washington, USA. A native of Japan, she has lived, worked, and studied in the US, Europe, and Africa. She consults, trains, and coaches in the areas of intercultural communication and international education. Currently, she is on her journey of becoming a PhD through the Human and Organization Development program at Fielding Graduate University. Her source of inspiration is engaging in co-creative dialogues in professional, academic, and personal settings. Having been exposed to PL since 1998 and practicing it intensely since 2004, for Megumi PL is much more than an intercultural communication tool; it is a way of life that allows significant personal as well as professional transformation. She is the director of Personal Leadership Seminars - Japan.

Rita Wuebbeler, M.A. is founder and president of Interglobe Cross-Cultural Business Services, Inc., an international training and consulting firm based in Halifax, Nova Scotia and in Atlanta, Georgia. A dual US-German national with over 20 years of experience in training and facilitation, Rita specializes in leadership training, cultural competency building and team development programs for global virtual teams serving clients in the for-profit and non-profit sectors in the North America, Europe and Asia. She is an Advisory Board Member of the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research SIETAR USA and a certified Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) Administrator. Rita frequently speaks and publishes on the topic of effective cross-cultural communication and leadership. She has a passion for building bridges to help people reach their highest potential. Rita offers Personal Leadership to individuals and groups to help them be at their "highest and best" in their professional and personal lives.

Associate Facilitators

Thorunn Bjarnadottir M.A. International Education, is a Program Associate at International Student & Scholar Services at the University of Minnesota. Originally from Iceland, she runs a program called Culture Corps which teaches international students organizational and leadership skills to help them operate fully in foreign environments. Her first encounter with Personal Leadership was in 1999 at the Summer Institute for Intercultural communication. She had been searching for ways to make living and learning in a foreign environment more real, and PL has become the missing link. She is completing her PhD at the University of Minnesota, and is doing her dissertation research on PL.

Viviane Ephraimson-Abt, Ms Ed., is the Assistant Director for the culturally diverse residential community of Apartment Life at Colorado State University. For the past 20 years she has been an Interculturalist at several universities, in K-12 schools, and with non-profit organizations. Her intercultural experiences include being a first generation American from a multi-national, multi-lingual and multi-religious family and living in Germany and Japan. She is an intercultural trainer, and also facilitates mindfulness based practices for groups and individuals. Viviane was first exposed to PL in 1998 at the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication. She enjoys watching herself and others achieve mindful transformations through learning and practicing PL.

Taruni Falconer, M.Educ, BA, Dip Tchg, FICI is known internationally for her work in the field of intercultural communication, international leadership development, and building productive diversity-aware workplace cultures. Through her Australia-based consulting and training company, Intercultural Dynamics™, clients know her as a skilled designer and facilitator with over 30 years of experience in the practice areas of cultural transitions and integration, managing across cultures, multicultural team development, global competency assessment (GCI/IES), and coaching of executives and managers.

Taruni has initiated long term intercultural consulting and training programs for corporate, government and education client organizations in Australasia, India, East Africa and the Middle East. Personal Leadership practices have informed her facilitation of these, especially since 2008. Additionally these are informed by her work as a Fellow at the Intercultural Communication Institute, and as a Master Trainer for Cultural Detective® Facilitator Certification. She is also a certified Global Competencies Inventory (GCI) administrator. Taruni is recognized as an innovative leader and facilitator in her discipline, shaping awareness of intercultural issues and practices for leaders and managers.

Nina Jane Merrens is British, the managing director of Intercultural Communication based in Munich, Germany. Nina specializes in international management training, team development, virtual team training, global leadership and coaching for corporate clients. Client within Germany includes firms such as Microsoft, Siemens, BMW, Beiersdorf, and Deutsche Telekom. Her international assignments include working for ABB in China, for Ferring pharmaceuticals in Denmark, for Pepper & Rogers Group in the Middle East for W.L Gore and Associates in the UK, and for ENEL in Italy Her recent work in the field of Team Development and strategy facilitation has included clients such as Beiersdorf, Infineon, O2, Bombardier and Avaya Tenovis. Nina has also led training sessions on Trust in Teams for the World Bank in Washington DC and has been employed since 2001 as a guest lecturer on intercultural awareness at Passau University, Germany.

She discovered Personal Leadership at the Summer Institute of Intercultural Communication in Portland, Oregon in 2007 and has been committed ever since to integrating Personal Leadership into her work. She initiated, organized and assisted with the first Personal Leadership seminar at the Esalen Institute, California in 2009 and will be assisting with the second one in April 2010.

Katsuko Sugiyama, M.A. works in a U.S. financial services company in Boston, MA, as Relationship Manager for Japanese institutional investors and global advisors; her focus is on meeting the particular intercultural business needs of her clients. Born and raised in Osaka, Japan, Katsuko has studied and worked in the U.S. for the past 16 years, and has expertise in intercultural management, teamwork and communication. She practices Personal Leadership to align her personal and professional life with her life purpose and vision. Katsuko introduces PL as a tool and/or a way of life to individuals and organizations seeking personal and professional transformation via coaching, consulting and training.

Claudia Zysk, M.A., CPLP is a Leadership Development Specialist at a multinational services company headquartered in Seattle. Born and raised in Germany, Claudia has provided global leadership training and consulting for more than 10 years to leaders all over the world. Her focus is to empower people and organizations to build bridges across cultural differences and to create synergy by developing cultural intelligence. On a one-year long assignment in India she discovered the transformative power of Personal Leadership, which changed her life forever. Since then she has been passionate about bringing the methodology to individuals and organizations in support of their leadership development initiatives.

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