After a 30-year career as a restaurant manager and owner, Eric attained an MBA and MA from Missouri State University and a PhD in Organizational Communication from UCSB. His research interest focused on coordination of work, team dynamics, leadership, and relationships in the workplace. He currently teaches in the Department of Technology Management at UCSB, working with both undergraduate and graduate students on entrepreneurship, management, leadership, strategy, communication, and persuasion as well as teaching for the MBA program at California Lutheran University where he teaches Organizational Behavior and Sustainable Business Practices. Through his consulting company, Effectiveness Consultants, Eric works with a wide range of organizations on leadership development, team building, and strategy, as well as working with small businesses through two non-profits (WEV and the EDC-SBDC) tackling challenges such as market-validating a business idea to assessing how to how to manage day to day operations. Additionally, Eric has over 800,000 views of online courses through a variety of platforms.