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Since founding FutureU with Claude Whitmyer in 1997, she has focused increasingly on Web-based content creation, delivery and program strategy. She is the author, designer and frequent presenter of numerous FutureU webinars and face-to-face workshops, including "How to Wow ‘Em with PowerPoint," "The Art (Not the Science) of Teaching with Technology," "Course Mapping and Storyboarding," "The Best of the Web's (Ever-Evolving) Resources for Teaching," "Accommodating Learning Styles in the Virtual Classroom," and others. With Mr. Whitmyer, she has used these and other materials to train numerous university faculties—from California to Puerto Rico. While Mr. Whitmyer is an internationally known expert on the new technologies for education and communications, Ms. Grimes specializes in the art of communicating, teaching and learning with the new tools. Her presence as a “non-techie” in the classroom, and her ability to simplify and explain technical skills and concepts, are especially reassuring and helpful to beginners and instructors in the arts, humanities and social sciences. At the same time, her attention to “soft skills” raises the bar for instructional design and communication in the new media among more technologically inclined faculty and staff members. In her consulting practice, she has helped more than 150 organizations identify and articulate their branding, mission, goals, implementation plans, case for support, and parameters for an evolving corporate culture; document their internal processes; assess the effectiveness of their communications programs; and motivate existing stakeholders and recruit new ones. One of her favorite creative projects is Building Bridges Across Time, the corporate history of California Pacific Medical Center, one of California’s largest not-for-profit healthcare institutions; this engaging document, a 75-page book now in its fourth edition, essentially captures the cultural and economic history of health care in the American West. Prior to founding FutureU, and occasionally still working for preferred clients, Ms. Grimes has built a portfolio of organizational writing and art direction that is at least 15,000 pages long, much of it documenting organizational change and need. A former journalist, she is well known as a motivational and technical writer, art director, print production editor, and project manager. She also tutors executives and managers individually to improve their English writing and technical communications skills. Throughout the 1980s, she provided creative services to large not-for-profit organizations all around the United States, writing and producing printed and audio/visual materials primarily for fund development and community relations; her work helped raise more than a half-billion dollars for charitable causes. During the mid-1990s, she was the communications consultant to a $52 million Internet startup with a not-for-profit mission related to the humanistic use of technology for improved communications. This project laid the groundwork for her work today with FutureU. At FutureU, she also oversees corporate strategy and systems, as well as marketing and corporate communications, including Web site and curriculum content. A 1969 graduate of the University of New Hampshire, with a degree in Art and Literature, Ms. Grimes has focused her own graduate and continuing education on educational theory and practice, group facilitation, and the verbal and visual presentation of information. She has specifically received formal training in the Future Search™ large group facilitation process. | Use your BACK button to return to the previous page. | FutureU Copyright © 1997-2006, The University of the Future. All rights reserved. |
Gail Terry Grimes is co-founder and chief executive officer of the University of the Future, LLC (FutureU™). For more than 25 years, Ms. Grimes has been serving universities, medical centers and other large not-for-profit organizations as an external consultant for communications, learning, and fund development. She has been creating and presenting educational and motivational content for institutional clients since 1973.