Rich Douglas, PhD, DSocSci, PCC, CPTD

Rich Douglas is a Coach for The Ken Blanchard Companies®. He’s known for creating solid relationships with his client and his flexibility to partner with them to not only reach their goals but to tackle any challenges along the way. Rich is an expert in both personal and purposeful leadership development, helping to create better leaders by increasing not just their competence, but also their capacity to take on greater challenges and complexities.

As an internal performance consultant, Rich has been coaching employees for more than 20 years and external clients for two. His areas of expertise are strategic leadership, purposeful leadership development, coaching new supervisors, and career coaching. Using a holistic approach, Rich coaches his clients’ entire lived experiences—both at and away from one—as one thing. Having been training and developing leaders for four decades, Rich always mixes new learning experiences into the coaching experience.

Rich began his career as an Education and Training officer in the US Air Force, running training and leadership development programs. Following retirement from active duty, Rich worked as a consultant to several government agencies before re-entering government service as a senior program manager in the Department of Homeland Security where, over the past dozen years, he’s launched and managed several leadership development programs.

Certified in distance learning and an experienced faculty member with several universities, Rich has made distance learning and other forms of nontraditional higher education a passion and part of his professional practice. He is currently working on a book documenting the history of distance learning and its contemporary andragogical and pedagogical implications.

Rich earned his PhD in higher education from Union Institute and University, writing his dissertation on college and university accreditation and its impact on the acceptability of college degrees in the workplace. He also earned a Doctor of Social Science degree in human resource management from the University of Leicester, where his thesis created a grounded theory on the phenomenon of the Chief Learning Officer. Rich also holds a Master of Business Administration from National University. His professional certifications include the Professional Certified Coach (PCC), Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR), and Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP) designations.

After living in many places during his career in public service, Rich has settled in Tucson, Arizona with his wife Paula and little dog Lucy. When he’s not coaching and developing talent, Rich pursues his interests in higher education and a very elusive golf game. His approach to life and work is that they’re not to be balanced with each other, but instead integrated as one so that joy can be found throughout all one’s endeavors.

Business Sector Experience

Government, Higher Education, Consulting, Corrections, Military