References

"It is with great pleasure that I recommend Virginia Swain as an organizational consultant and seminar leader. She modeled for us the value in approaching each situation from the place of our higher selves and helped us see during her consultation with us that all of us have that potential. She enabled us to begin a process of healing both personally and collectively as an organization in a gentle manner. In the validation and affirmation she provided, she empowered the organization and the individuals in it to learn to go deeper and embody the gifts that we are. She did not impose her model and say, 'follow it'. Her focus is on shining the light on the truth while showing unconditional love and modeling the balance of being student and teacher. Virginia provided a bridge for the transition from our operating from our heads to our hearts. Virginia helped us identify what each person in the organization's gifts are and how we can bring them together to create a team effort."

—Susan Sperry, Clinical Director,
Exceptional Cancer Patients
New Haven, CT

"Virginia's style of warmth, enthusiasm and acceptance draws people out while maintaining the focus."

—Barbara Wheeler, Co-Director,
Community Resource and Renewal Center

"Virginia helped us bring closure to the past and enabled us to set goals and move ahead into the future. She has helped us see that our diversity is in fact a gift and has helped us affirm our differences. We are listening and talking to each other in a new way through her work."

—Thomas R. Minifie, Rector,
St. Paul's Parish
Medford, MA

"Virginia's intuitive sense of people, her gentle and caring guidance and her technical skills create profound movement, change and growth. Because she embodies the higher values with which she works, she offers a rare congruent model for people and teams who wish to enhance their lives in the workplace."

—Dr. Patricia Montgomery, Author of
Mythmaking: Heal Your Past, ClaimYour Future,
Professor of Women's Studies, Portland, OR

"Virginia gets bottom line results resolving conflicts in organizations. She gets at the roots of turnover and other symptoms of dissatisfaction by finding out what is preventing the organization from achieving its mission smoothly and cost effectively. As a result people become more committed and organizations more productive."

—Gifford Pinchot III, Chairman,
Pinchot & Company,
Seattle, WA

"Virginia was an active participant in the Steering Committee of the Tent of Meeting project for the City of New Haven in 1985. In her role in the Steering Committee, Virginia distinguished herself as a concerned and committed citizen to bring a work of art to the City that involved the participation of various community groups. Virginia brought careful and realistic analysis of our budget structure and implementation. She brought keen attention to the issues and questions that the committee had to solve. She had an understanding of the Project that involved both an appreciation for the Tent of Meeting as a work of art as well as its implication for the good of the community at large. Additionally, she was the person on the committee that continued to remind us and help lead us
to the point of focus. She determined that a slogan ought to be defined and designed a button with the phrase 'Celebrating Our Differences' for publicity and marketing purposes very successfully. She was constantly available to help write, to help evaluate goals, and to work with our Project Director and others in implementing those goals. Virginia was a facilitator for the committee that helped draw on the strengths and talents represented in the group in order to make a contribution towards our common interest. She was one of the outstanding members and represented very high standards of managerial and human resource skills. Displaying a keen intelligence as well as sensitivity to the various types of people involved, Virginia emerged as a civic leader who has talent and ability to work in public relations and public projects in a constructive and successful manner. At the last minute, during a financial crunch, she successfully raised additional monies to complete the project from the Xerox Corporation."

—John W. Cook, Director, Institute of Sacred Music
and Professor of Religion and the Arts, Yale University

"I worked with Virginia for two years at International Salt where she was Sales Coordinator. Virginia is an exceptionally intelligent and disciplined person, very assertive and unusally effective. She is also a woman with integrity and high moral standards. She is capable of handling a position which is challenging requiring creativity and self motivation. Her responsibilities included close telephone contact with key buyers and distributors and they came to rely on her and seek her advice and opinions."

—Lyn Clark, Northeast Regional Sales Manager,
Master of Mixes,
Overland Park, KS

"As Director of Public Relations and Marketing for us, I found Virginia to be a remarkably sensitive and caring person — an excellent resource for any firm or organization in the process of trying to improve or extend their image... She makes contacts easily and well, and projects the highest quality of 'persona'as a representative. She is especially adept at making contact with professionals at all levels in business. She has developed programs on many of the major issues in business today. The programs are well attended and evaluations laudatory. Persuasive, but never aggressive, Virginia is capable of 'creating connections' and networking by telephone and in person, even in competitive situations where organizations have had a prior history of non-communication or even adversarial relationships. I admire her ability to do this and, at the same time, maintain her own identity and ethical standards. I recommend her without reservations."

—Stacy Orphanos, Director of Programs/Publications,
Wainwright House,
Rye, NY