The author was born in Feb. 1943 in Ft. Fairfield, Maine and was one of seven children. This area of the country at the time (during World War II and the Korean War) was a time of just surviving. His father worked on an Air Force Base repairing B-25 bombers after their mission into Germany across Greenland, and his mother was a stay-at-home mom taking care of the 7 children, which more than kept her busy. Being brought up with 6 other children in the family gave the author the advantage of understanding what it was like to get along with others and what needed to be done to "get his way," especially since he was in the middle of the 7 children. Through school he was a loner, spending a lot of time just walking through the woods with his 22 rifle and not wanting to be around people. The reason for this is that his stuttering was so bad that he often had trouble holding a conversation - even with his own family. This made school a very difficult situation for him, which resulted in a personality that was not very controllable. After graduating from High School in 1961 he went into the Army National Guard (6 months active duty). He was made a squad leader where, just a short time before, he would never have been considered to have any type of leadership ability. So it showed that when he was finally away from his environment he started to excel, which brought to his attention years later what kind of affect a change in environment had on an individual. He not only achieved squad leader in his company in his army training time, but the change in the environment seemed to also have an effect on his personality, resulting in more confidence, and the stuttering started to fade and eventually disappeared. From the Army, he went on to get his Associates in Applied Science in Mechanical Technology. From there, he earned a B. S. in Industrial Technology, then his M.S. in Organizational Behavioral Science. In his college years, Ralph took as many public speaking courses as possible and, with a lot of faith, got his stuttering under control. It isn't only the education that helped him, but he strongly believes it was his change in environment and getting away from his area of childhood that made a tremendous difference. It is also strongly believed that if Ralph had stayed in his past environment not much would have changed in his life. It was his last degree that created a curiosity in the area of human behavioral patterns, along with his own personal change that occurred in his life from changing his own environment. From this, he went on work in the field of engineering for a short time, which led him into management. In this arena he was able to use his curiosity to observe people in their work environment, and their behavior. In doing so, the author used the studies from behavioral scientists (such as B.F. Skinner, Dr. James Watson, Abraham Maslow and Sigmund Freud) to give him more knowledge and understanding of individuals and their behavioral patterns and why they acted they way they did. Later in life, he got involved in a network marketing organization which was based totally on individuals' performances and their personalities and wanting to change their environment to fulfill their dreams. This organization led him to read other great authors on personalities, such as Robert Schuler and Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. He also spent a lot of time studying the books written by Napoleon Hill, such as "Think and Grow Rich", "The Master Key to Riches" and "Success through a Positive Mental Attitude." In this network organization he started to wonder why people got involved in a business and yet did not succeed. People higher in the organization kept saying you needed a "Dream", but what they didn't consider was that the individuals had a past environment, and recruiting the individual into the business was not enough to eliminate the past environment. Therefore, the past environment blocked their belief of ever achieving any more than what they felt they deserved. The Dream never became a reality and they never allowed themselves to believe in the Dream. This situation was never addressed by the organization. Ralph spent 8 years with the Kiwanis Club, three of these as an officer, and one as its President. He spent 14 years with a political conservative party as its Public Relations person for setting up fund raising events. He served on the Southington High School Building committee for 8 years and 4 of these years as the Chairman of the Board of Education Advisory Committee. In that capacity, he wrote different reports on the educational growth of the community and its effect on the curriculum. Ralph has also been very active in church organizations, such as serving on church councils, and different committees within the Men's Club in the church. He spent time teaching college to students who, by state standards, were underprivileged. More important, he also taught classes to students from Personnel Departments who needed to know more about personnel policies and how to deal with employees who had different circumstances with their employment. It was at this time that the author decided that his thesis for his M.S. (conflict having positive results, when managed properly) should be put into a book to show that positive conflict in a person's environment can result in not only a change in the environment but help an individual to move on to achieve his or her goals in life. This book is not based just on theory, but on actual cases experienced by the author. His experience in the management field included being a supervisor at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft where he had individuals reporting to him that were twice his age. From there, he worked at Fafnir Bearing where his worked eventually got him promoted to Manufacturing Project Engineer. His greatest knowledge of individuals came with his many years at O. F. Mossberg, a gun manufacturer, where his experience in managing over 100 individuals made him start thinking more about why people do what they do, so he decided to go on to get an M.S. in Organizational Behavioral Science. After achieving his M.S., Ralph continued to work on his own by starting a display company and doing consulting wherever he could find a consulting job. However, his experience in a network or MLM business got him to question more about individuals and why they wouldn't perform or would not believe in themselves and believe they deserved more than what they had. Having spent 23 years on the Republican town committee in Southington, Connecticut as a committee person, I got involved in many campaigns, whether passing out flyers on candidates or public speaking and calling many individuals on the phone. I have experienced many individuals' feelings about politics and politicians. In that time period I also campaigned and ran for a seat on the Planning and Zoning Committee. I was also the Southington Campaign Coordinator for state 6th Congressional District for Gene Migliaro who was a State Representative. I campaigned for Gene in Southington and assisted the Town Committee on many campaigns and in the Governor's race when Gov. Rowland ran for office. I also served on the Central Connecticut Environmental Committee, which was an appointment by the town committee, and was the lead person on many fund raisers for the town's Republican Party. I Served on the High School Building Committee for 7 years. This was an appointed position by the Town Committee as a reward for the work that I had been doing and because they knew that I would serve the committee with the integrity that the party wanted. I was in Kiwanis for twelve years and served as its President for two years. I also served as the New England Membership Director. In this position I traveled throughout New England getting to know and understand how people felt about their country and what it should stand for.
