Jim Liautaud - Founder

Liautaud is currently serving as a Clinical Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, researching and implementing methods and processes for implementing change in Emotional Intelligence. The ISO process he developed for improving EI is copywrited by UIC. Liautaud also funded the UIC Liautaud Graduate School of Business and the UIC Foundation for Emotional Intelligence. Both support the implementation of these Peer directed Emotional Intelligence (PdEI) leadership programs that are being used to effectively improve the Emotional Intelligence of CEOs and business executives. PdEI training is currently used in the Chicago School System for their elementary and high school principals. It is also being used for training doctoral students in Psychology at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology.

Prior to joining the staff at UIC, Liautaud was awarded 65 patents from companies he founded since his graduation from the University of Illinois in 1962. Liautaud was the founder of four tech businesses, acquired another, and was a founding investor/director in two insurance companies, National Interstate and Raffles, and a propane gas company, Blue Rhino. Two of those companies, Blue Rhino and National Interstate, are now public. He sold his business interests in 1995 and has since devoted his time and resources to researching and implementing positive behavior change.

Dr. Larry Grimm- Project Manager

Dr. Grimm conducts research on the effectiveness on PdEI training among corporate executives. He also serves as Jim Liautaud’s project manager at the UIC Medical Center where they are finding ways to use physicians’ emotional intelligence competencies to reduce malpractice claims.

Dr. Grimm received his graduate degrees in Clinical Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1979. After interning at the San Francisco V.A. Hospital, he joined the faculty of the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1977, where he received tenure. He served as Director of Clinical Psychology from 1990 to 2002, and currently is the Director of Graduate Studies. He has over 40 publications, including three books on scientific methodology and statistics. He has published extensively on the Type A personality and short-term interventions from a perspective that emphasizes needs analysis and problem solving.