The Institute's Trainers
In
addition to the four trainers who founded NVCTI in 2000 (pictured left to right)
— Towe Widstrand, Robert Gonzales,
Wes Taylor and Susan Skye — NVCTI has added Gregg Kendrick (2007),
Gina Lawrie (2008) and Jeff Brown (2009) as trainers on the team.
Our different backgrounds
and styles blend
synergistically to produce a rich and unique learning opportunity.
Robert Gonzales, USA
Robert received a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology in 1989. He met
Marshall
Rosenberg and Nonviolent Communication in 1985, and has been offering
NVC in some form since 1986.
His background is primarily in individual and couples counseling. He
has offered NVC training to community colleges, high schools, churches,
social workers, psychologists, mediators, teenagers, and public
groups.
Robert has taught psychology, counseling and communication at the College level, and founded the Center for Living Compassion in 2010 which is located in Portland, Oregon, USA.
Robert is a Past Board President of the Center for Nonviolent Communication from 2007-2009. He has been a trainer at several of the Center's International Intensive Trainings and has been an assessor for certifying trainers for the Center for Nonviolent Communication.
You can reach Robert by E-mail at or his web site: living-compassion.org
More information about Robert's offerings can be found here.
Susan Skye, USA
Susan is a trainer, private consultant and speaker. An
Assistant Dean
at UCLA in the early 70s, she co-created and taught the Women’s Studies
Program there. Since 1976 she has conducted trainings in a variety of
self-development
areas. A graduate of Bryn Mawr College, Yale University and Pacifica
Graduate Institute, Susan has Masters’ degrees in both Psychology and
Russian and East European Studies. She has had a private consulting
practice for more than 20 years.
A founder of the NVC Training Institute, Susan has led NVC trainings in the U.S., Canada, Europe and South Korea and has been a regular trainer at CNVC's International Intensive Trainings. She has worked with General Motors and the government of British Colombia amongst others. She served as the CNVC Registration Coordinator for Certification Candidates in North and South America for almost ten years.
You can reach Susan by E-mail.
More information can be found on Susan's Trainer Link page.
Wes Taylor, USA
Wes helped establish the Flagstaff Center for Compassionate
Communication in 1998 to promote NVC in Northern Arizona and to support
the larger NVC network. Since that time, Wes has been an independent
consultant
and
trainer in public venues as well as in organizations of all
sizes. He is currently applying NVC in his responsibility for
cultivating a culture of compassion and accountability at Mercy Medical
Center, a large inner-city hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.
Prior to his involvement with NVC, Wes spent 15 years offering counseling and psychotherapy in private practice, outpatient clinics and hospital settings, working with addictions, trauma survivors, and other psychiatric issues. In 1995, Wes spent a year in Australia working with the South Pacific Private Hospital providing staff training, community education, and direct clinical services to patients and their families.
You can reach Wes by E-mail.
More information can be found on Wes' Trainer Link page.
Gregg Kendrick, USA
Gregg, a
certified trainer for the Center for Nonviolent Communication, serves
as an Associate Trainer for the NVC Training Institute. With an
extensive background in business management, Gregg’s specialty
is working with those who want to integrate NVC consciousness into a
business, nonprofit or other organization. He formerly was co-owner
& CEO of a software technology training firm for 19 years whose
clients were mostly large corporations & government agencies.
Within this business, he brought an awareness of NVC among the staff and transformed the structure & operation of the business to be in concert with the principals of NVC. He has been a full-time consultant/trainer since 2004 using NVC to co-create living organizations where people matter. Other key business experience includes serving on several boards of directors of nonprofit & for-profit organizations and co-managing an investment fund for seven years.
In 2004, he founded Basileia LLC with the mission of co-creating organizations where people thrive amidst authenticity, connection, and interdependence using the tools of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and Dynamic Governance (DG). An integral part of this mission is a vision of leadership based on inspiration, empowerment & trust rather than control, compliance and self-interest. Basileia offers workshops & consulting in organizational management using NVC and DG.
You can reach Gregg by E-mail or his web site www.basileia.org.
More information can be found on Gregg's Trainer Link page.
Gina Lawrie, U.K.
Gina has a background in psychology, social work and
management
development. She has been working as an organization development
consultant for over 20 years in private, public and not-for-profit
sectors supporting
individuals, managers and
organizations to bring
about cultural and behavioral change.
In her consulting she draws on many approaches, including Gestalt and complexity theory and since 1997 has integrated NVC into her work.
In the 1970’s Gina taught meditation, and she greatly values the way NVC supports the integration of spiritual values with practical skills.
Gina has been a facilitator of Open Space Technology (OST) since 1990. She introduced many people in the NVC network to the principles of OST when she facilitated the international NVC conventions in Europe and then in US in 2000 using OST. She may be best known in the NVC community for jointly creating the NVC Dance Floors with Bridget Belgrave. This method for teaching and practicing NVC is now translated into seven languages. To learn all about the NVC Dance Floors, see http://nvcdancefloors.com.
Based in Farnham, Surrey, UK, Gina works with NVC worldwide. She introduced NVC in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore and has supported the developing teams in those countries. Gina has been a certified trainer since 1997, has been a trainer at several IITs, and is one of the assessors for trainer certification with CNVC.
You can reach Gina by E-mail or her web site http://ginalawrie.co.uk.
More information can be found on Gina's Trainer Link page.
Jeff Brown, USA
Jeff
lives in Columbus, Ohio, USA and has been a Certified Trainer with the
Center for Nonviolent Communication since 2005. Since 2009, he has been the Executive
Director of Compassionate
Communication of Central Ohio, an NVC nonprofit
organization based in Columbus, Ohio, USA.
Jeff has a master's degree in Spiritual Psychology and has shared NVC in 20 U.S. states and five countries, including Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea and the U.K. He is passionate about building organizations in the global NVC community that are resilient and that integrate NVC principles for both effectiveness and interdependence.
You can reach Jeff by E-mail or his organization's web site at www.nvcohio.org.
More information can be found on Jeff's Trainer Link page.
Trainers Emeritus
Towe Widstrand, Sweden
BA, in business and psychology. Towe lives in Sweden and has
worked with NVC since 1987 and over the past twenty
years has conducted NVC-trainings in more than 20 countries. She has
worked with hospital staff, company managers, personnel managers and
staff, prison staff, inmates, teachers, social workers as well as
public groups and individuals. Towe has also been a trainer at many
IITs.
Towe was a co-founder of the NVC Training institute in 2000 and worked with our team through 2007. You can reach Towe by E-mail. Also, please see Towe's Swedish web site www.towewidstrand.se
More information can be found on Towe's Trainer Link page.




