Support from the Community
Testimonials
John E. Perez
Pasadena Police Department
This correspondence is in regard to the professional services provided by Mr. Ray Ramirez. To begin, I am a police lieutenant with 35 years of experience and my past assignments involved the management of an Anti-Gang Unit and SWAT team that conducts over 5,000 investigative contacts with people each year. As a result, we sometimes receive complaints about the demeanor and behavior of officers during field contacts. In order to combat this problem, the Pasadena Police Department requested the assistance of Mr. Ramirez to help teach officers how to communicate better with people in the community. This resulted in over 15 police officers from the Special Enforcement Section receiving training from Mr. Ramirez on conflict management techniques. Over the past year the number of complaints regarding the behavior of the officers has dramatically decreased, in part, due to the officers understanding of how to properly communicate with others. Currently, we did not receive any community complaints for that year, however, the overall production of arrests had increased over the year.
In addition, Mr. Ramirez has been a great community resource by offering his services to the family of homicide victims killed as a result of the local gang culture. Mr. Ramirez was able to work with families and offer them counseling and other service resources to assist them during this crisis. Mr. Ramirez has also requested and used our officers to assist on mediation with high school students to resolve conflicts. This has been very helpful for officers to learn some of the core issues that cause conflict among teenagers, while improving the image of the officers with our young adults in the community. I hope that Mr. Ramirez continues to be an asset to the community and a leader and educator that I have depended upon to help fight the culture of gangs and youth violence in our society.
Rev. A. Paige Eaves
Associate Pastor for Youth & Missions
Pasadena 1st United Methodist Church
After my training, I immediately put my enhanced mediation skills to work in the church environment. I was asked to mediate a colleague’s church conflict – a prolonged and difficult affair. I find that I have more confidence in facilitating large meetings where controversial subjects are on the table. The training’s focus on intergenerational, interethnic conversations has proven to be particularly relevant for my work.
Zoot Velasco
The Unusual Suspects Theatre Company
We greatly value the training and partnership we received from you. We have incorporated what we've learned into our curriculum and will be referring others to your training! It has been an invaluable experience for us. It should be a required college course for all students!
Sally Fairman
The Unusual Suspects Theatre Company
The training was superb! I would recommend this course to anyone wishing to enhance their listening skills and interactions with people in any environment. Because of the training, our curriculum now incorporates non-violence techniques allowing the participants to get community service credit for their participation, helping them get off probation and get on with their lives.
Mayra Nolan
STARS Program Director
I found the training extremely helpful for my own line of work
Kathleen Stein
Girl Scouts - Mt Wilson Vista Council
The training Mr. Ramirez provided was informative as well as engaging. The trainers were very knowledgeable and imparted information and taught skills provided was in a very accessible way. The role play practice and group exercises were helpful in gaining insight into my own behavior as well as observing others.
Brian Biery
Neighborhood Connections
City of Pasadena, HSRD
Mr. Ramirez provided an excellent workshop on "Understanding Diversity" as a guest speaker for the Pasadena Neighborhood Leadership Institute. His rapport with the students was terrific and as a result he was able to assist them to analyze their racial and ethnic biases in a manner which allowed them to be introspective and yet not defensive about their feelings. The participation by the students was very high as all of them recognized that the improvement of race relations is of the utmost importance in our society today. After the discussion all of the participants rated the workshop as 'very good' or 'excellent' so there was a high level of satisfaction with its content and implementation. Our office would definitely like to utilize Mr. Ramirez and his services like this workshop in the future.