Biography of a Distinguished Toastmaster and Life Coach

Ray D. Willis is a highly versatile, innovative management professional who utilizes innovation and creativity to resolve complex problems. He is skilled at seeing the "big picture" without losing sight of the inconsistencies and complexity of details — his agility in business assists in developing and streamlining processes and systems. Ray's unique ability to get stakeholders to focus on specific issues using exceptional listening and negotiation skills helps find common ground and resolve complex multidimensional inter-dependent issues in win-win solutions. 

Ray's successful, well-developed Servant Leadership style, along with his excellent social work and casework supervisor training, provides the base that helps him build effective, loyal, long-term relationships. His formal training experience started with the U.S. Air Force and training fellow enlisted and officer aircrew members on highly technical aircraft systems. Further advanced leadership courses and training helped him to achieve great success as a leader and trainer. 

Retiring from the Air Force, Ray accepted a position in Raytheon Aircraft's training department. He trained office personnel on the intricacies of Microsoft operating systems and all Office products. He was selected to test computer products developed in-house, then teach those systems to all Raytheon Aircraft employees. Completing that work, Ray opted to serve as the Director of Technical Computer Education at Cowley College and adjunct instructor positions at multiple Universities, including Wichita State University - Wichita, Kansas, and the University of Central Oklahoma - Edmond, Oklahoma.

Ray completed his Master's Degree in Business Administration (MBA) after leaving Cowley College with further education as his goal. He then accepted a position with Dell/EMC. He continued his post-graduate pursuit, a Ph.D. program with the University of Phoenix, where he completed 62 hours of 700-level classes with a 3.74 GPA. 

After leaving Dell/EMC, Ray D. Willis has worked nearly full-time as a volunteer for Toastmasters International. His leadership skills have been demonstrated as President and Vice-President of Education at the Club level and District 16, Division A Director, with the leadership of four Area Directors and sixteen clubs for the year. Ray also completed thirteen Toastmasters International education awards and achieved his Traditional Distinguished Toastmasters Award this past year. This year Ray completed 17 educational awards, and on April 9th, 2019, he was awarded a Pathways Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM) award, the highest educational award in Toastmasters International. 

Those Toastmaster skills in public speaking and leadership, further enhanced by a firm base in computer experience, education, and classroom ability, are displayed in his achieving a Certified Technical Trainer (CTT+) from CompTIA in 2017. 

Ray is comfortable as an instructor and administrator in the academic environment, well qualified, and able to converse and train in a technical and military background. He is confident, without being arrogant, presenting information to individuals at all levels of any organization, from workers to the Presidents and Chief Executive Officers of large organizations. 

Ray now offers Certified Life Coaching online from his base in Oklahoma City. His online life coaching is based on certified neurolinguistic programming master practitioner and cognitive-behavioral certifications.