Richard W. Tate

 Rick is co-founder of Innovative Thinking, Inc., an international consulting firm, a founding faculty member of the Center for Innovative Leadership, a faculty member for the Institute of Management Studies, and a member of the Disney Great Leader Strategies faculty.

For over 15 years, Rick has been consulting, speaking, training, writing and developing state of the art concepts that challenge people's mind-sets and develop new ways of thinking. His expertise is backed by over 12 years of successful line management experience.

Rick has authored many books, articles and training programs including the best-sellers Leadership and the Customer Revolution, Legendary Service, and Frontline Service. His acclaimed training programs have been translated into over eleven languages and distributed all over the world.

Rick is a captivating and motivating speaker whose use of stories, examples, anecdotes and metaphors provide a unique learning experience for audiences. He speaks to literally thousands of people a year from groups of ten senior executives to thousands of front line employees.

His client list is extensive and reads like a "who's who" of business. It includes such notable organizations as Disney, Coca Cola, Johnson & Johnson, Motorola, American Honda, Brinker, Xerox, IBM, Perrier, National Park Service, Norwest, Publix, Norstan, Manpower, Bank-One, Nortel and J.C. Penney.

Rick holds graduate degrees from the University of San Francisco and California American University and has served as a faculty member at many institutions of higher education.