EDMOND OTIS

Edmond Otis, AACT President/Chief Executive Officer and Director of Training is a nationally recognized speaker, trainer, and organizational consultant. He specializes in the areas of Conflict Resolution, Workplace Violence Prevention and Intervention, Violence Risk Assessment, Anger Management, Leadership, Peak Performance, Strategic Thinking, Stress Management, Sexual Harassment, and Critical Incident Stress Debriefing. Mr. Otis has great success training, motivating and counseling groups and individuals from a wide range of backgrounds and disciplines. His AACT comprehensive training programs are used by industry, schools, and public and private agencies in a myriad of subject areas.

Mr. Otis has a rich and unique background. He combines experience as an author, licensed psychotherapist (MFT 31194), and accomplished university educator, with 37 years of intense traditional karate practice, and international recognition as a world-class competitor, instructor and coach. Mr. Otis blends these distinctive skills and insights into his training, consulting and coaching style - creating dynamic content, effective strategies and pragmatic interventions for complex and difficult workplace situations. His keynote and seminar presentations have gained national attention helping audiences find success by applying classic martial art strategies to life's most difficult personal and professional challenges. These presentations are stimulating and immediately relevant to the most demanding professional audience.

Mr. Otis has been on the faculty of the University of California, Riverside since 1981. He lectures in the Humanities and English Departments, the Graduate School of Education and in the Honors Program, where he has developed numerous courses that integrate traditional martial art philosophy with modern western life. He was awarded the UC Distinguished Teaching Award in 2002. Before concentrating his energies fully on training and consulting, Mr. Otis spent 10 years in clinical private practice as a marriage, family and child therapist, where he treated a wide variety of clients and situations. During that period, he trained therapists in "brief-strategic" therapy, led corporate workshops and retreats, and developed programs that focused on stress management, leadership, communication, anxiety, conflict, and anger.

Mr. Otis served four years on the UC Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Sexual Harassment. He holds a Master's of Science degree from Loma Linda University in Counseling and Family Sciences. He is a member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists and the International Coaching Federation.

DeNae Reagins, AACT Chief Operating Officer received a Bachelor of Arts in Business Economics from the University of California at Riverside in 1985. In 1992 he completed a Master of Arts in Education Administration from California State University at San Bernardino. He also holds a Multiple Subject Teaching Credential and an Administrative Professional Clear Credential issued by the California Teacher Commission.

His professional career in the field of public education includes seven years as an elementary school teacher in Los Angeles and Riverside Unified School Districts. Beyond the classroom, DeNae also served five years as a school administrator as an assistant principal in Riverside Unified School district for two years and four years as the principal of Matthew Gage Middle School also in Riverside Unified School. In 1998 DeNae resigned his commission as a public school educator and joined colleagues to form Instructional Access, Inc. The company is an education training organization that provides technology consulting services and professional training programs to government, public, private, and non-profit organizations. Instructional Access, Inc. currently provides services in 22 states and Puerto Rico. DeNae is a senior partner and Chief Operating Officer of the company. In this capacity he is responsible for new program development, managing the company's instructional practices, and serves as a liaison between federal agencies and county and state clients.

DeNae Reagins is a member of the board of Instructional Access, Inc. and Riverside Bre Dance Theatre both of Riverside, California. His professional affiliations also include the Association of School and Curriculum Development, California Association of School Administrators, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., and the Southern California Minority Business Development Council, Inc. He is also the recipient of numerous professional awards and citations.

DeNae Reagins is the proud father of two teenage sons and currently resides in Riverside, California.

Roberta Cox, PhD, AACT Director of Research and Development received her Masters and Doctorate in Psychology from the University of California, Riverside. Her research includes identifying the effects of personality and aggression on social hierarchy, as well as the effects of environment on normal and abnormal social behavior.

Dr. Cox has taught general, physiological, abnormal, health, and comparative psychology, research methodology and statistics at many colleges and universities, including the University of California - Riverside, Loma Linda University, Cal Poly Pomona, and Cal State San Bernardino. She also has experience in elementary education, and as a psychotherapist and administrator of an adolescent psych group homes.