Ray De Lagrave, founder and director of The Institute for Transformational Communication, first became acquainted with Carl Rogers in the MBA program at UCLA, where he specialized in Behavioral Science.

He applied Rogers' Person Centered Approach (PCA) in a successful twenty year career with the Coca-Cola Company, most of which was spent in Latin America as an executive, sales person and marketer. The PCA approach profoundly impacted his approach to people and relationships, team building and organization development.

Ray spent 10 years as President of De Lagrave Associates, Inc., an International Business Consulting firm specializing in helping companies establish businesses and expand markets in Latin America . His multi-cultural skills (Ray is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese and proficient in French) were of great assistance in helping U.S. clients build relationships and establish alliances overseas.

In 2000 Ray returned to graduate school to pursue a Ph.D. in psychology, where he developed a heightened appreciation for the depth and breadth of the PCA approach. From its roots in human development, it has grown into a powerful tool for developing interpersonal relationships.

In 2003 Ray took a break from his Doctoral Program to concentrate on helping people learn to apply Rogers ' techniques to empower themselves and their relationships.

The Institute for Transformational Communication is the fruit of that journey. The process he developed is available in the workshops, programs and materials given by ITC. It has been successfully used to empower Latino leaders through the Latino Community Leadership Program, which is given in Spanish.