History
Ridge was founded in 1972 by Robert Bolton and his wife Dorothy Grover Bolton. At the time Bob and Dot were living in Cazenovia, New York (a small town near Syracuse). They were unlikely entrepreneurs: he was a former minister and she had been a school psychologist in the public schools. Both had seen the destructive results of poor communication in their work, but they also knew that skillful communication had the power to make significant contributions to the quality of relationships, learning, work, and life. With a handful of committed colleagues they began exploring what today we call "best practices" in human communication as well as the best ways of teaching those skills to others. Ridge was born.
Ridge's first began teaching teachers how to achieve improved classroom results by changing the way they relate to students. Ridge quickly made a name for itself, and it wasn't long before corporations began asking Ridge to create similar results with key players in communication-rich roles: managers, sales people, customer service representatives, and team leaders. And while we still support the efforts of not-for-profit organizations, we've spent most of the past 30 years addressing performance and communication needs of Fortune 1,000 organizations and their employees. Our clients include some of the elite companies in the world. And while we still offer workshops in Cazenovia, we conduct the vast majority of our training at clients' sites across North America and around the world.
Over the years the Boltons (now retired) authored three books: People Skills, Social Style/Management Style, and People Styles at Work. Collectively there are over 950,000 copies of their books in print, in numerous languages including Arabic and Mandarin Chinese. To learn more about these titles, visit our news & publications page. Click here to learn more about Ridge's approach to training. To learn how Ridge may be able to help your company engage your employees and clients, please contact us.
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