Since 1987, when Ms. Lett was certified as a professional trainer in Business & Social Etiquette, Business & Social Entertaining, International Protocol and Executive Communications Skills, she has been a seminar speaker and coach around the world - teaching and advising on these subjects.  Currently she consults with companies including MCI Telecommunications, Chevron Overseas Petroleum and J. P. Morgan on these subjects. Additionally she offers private and corporate consultation and seminars on the power skills necessary to compete in the international business arena. Clients include major universities, Fortune 500 companies, international associations and savvy professionals from all levels of the corporate ladder.

Ms. Lett is the principal of The Lett Group, an organization which offers speaking and training programs on the above mentioned subjects.  She is also the editor of APROPOS! - a monthly newsletter on these subjects.

Since 1983 and presently - Ms. Lett is PRESIDENT & OWNER of Creative Planning International - a consulting firm, specializing in producing meetings and events for corporations and associations nationwide.  In this capacity Ms. Lett has planned over 2,400 meetings of 5-4,000 participants for corporations and associations in 102 countries. In 1987 she produced a training program for other meeting planners in how to plan international meetings.  She has been featured and quoted in publications such as Successful Meetings, Meetings and Conventions, Meeting News, Business Travel News, Washington Business Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, Regardies Magazine, Wall Street Journal, The Robb Report, Entrepreneur Magazine, The Harvard Business Review, Ohio Business Review, Training and Development Journal, CIO Magazine and others.  During 1990, Ms. Lett planned a series of Business Exchange meetings in the Soviet Union for entrepreneurs from the United States who wished to learn about joint ventures with the Soviets in many different fields.  Some of Creative Planning International's clients have included Wall Street Journal, A. T. & T., MCI Telecommunications Corporation, Eli Lilly and Company, Department of State, McKinsey and Company, Datapoint Corporation, Duracell International, Security Pacific among others.

For two years, Ms. Lett served as Director of Meeting Services for American Healthcare Institute responsible for over 1800 meetings each year. Thereafter, she worked for three years as Manager, Corporate Events and Meetings for MCI Communications Corporation.  For the past four years, she has been a frequent speaker at Meeting Professionals Association conventions and local association meetings on the subjects of International Protocol and Business Etiquette.

Ms. Lett holds a Master of Legal Studies degree from Antioch School of Law, Washington, D.C. and undergraduate degrees in Restaurant, Hotel, & Institutional Management and Public Relations from Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana.

Professionally, Ms. Lett is an active member of the American Society for Training and Development; Washington, D.C. Convention and Visitors Association; Women Business Owners; Professional Convention Management Association; and past member of the American Society of Association Executives; Foundation for International Meetings (Board of Governors 1986-1987). She was elected into Who's Who of American Women; Who's Who of Advertising Executives; 2000 Notable American Women; Who's Who of the World's Women; Who's Who of U.S. Executives and Who's Who of the World.

During the past ten years, Ms. Lett has produced the following programs:
" Trade Show & Meetings Etiquette - Making the investment work
" Boardroom Polish"
" Doing Business in Unfamiliar Cultures" - culture specific
" Executive Seminar on Business & Social Etiquette"
" Perception is Reality"
" Outclass Your Competition"
" Executive Seminar on Business & Social Entertaining"
" Awesome Interviews"
" Don't Slurp Your Soup" - Etiquette for Teens

Workshop Leader-"Planning International Meetings"
Meeting World 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989

Seminar Leader-"Non Dues Income Sources for Associations"
Meeting World 1989

Seminar Leader-
" Planning International Meetings for Meeting Planners"
" How To Attract Foreign Business to Your Country Inn"
" Finding New Mid-Week Business For Your Country Inn"
" How To Plan A Meeting At Your Country Inn"
" How To Start Your Own Business (when you have little money)"
" Starting Over In The Corporate World"

While overseeing the activities of Creative Planning International from 1987 until late 1989, Ms. Lett served as the Association Director for Great Inns of America.  In her position, she was responsible for setting the first quality standards in the country inns segment of the hospitality industry, visiting over 3,200 inns personally. In addition she is the author of two guidebooks to country inns, Great Inns of America, A Guidebook, Knapp Press, 1989 and Getaway Inn Style, America's Fifty Best Inns, Agora Publishing Inc., 1990. She continues to present seminars and consulting services to innkeepers wishing to attract meetings and other corporate functions to their inns.

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Contents

• Contact Information
• Biographical Information

Contact Information

Office phone
(301) 946-8208

FAX number
(603) 462-5779

Biographical Information

As the former Chief of Protocol for AT&T and Lucent Technologies, Bob has over 25 years of experience in marketing and international business protocol.  During his career, he has held executive positions in operations, marketing, sales, corporate education and public relations.  During 1998, Bob served as Senior Vice President and Chief of Protocol for PROTOCOL International, Inc.

For AT&T and Lucent Technologies, Bob created, developed and managed protocol organizations that served the sales and marketing departments of both companies worldwide since 1981.

Bob has planned and directed well over 4,000 senior level marketing visits to the United States involving chief executive officers, boards of directors, ambassadors, ministers, current and former heads of state, and royalty.

In 1995 Bob was selected to conduct protocol and cross cultural training for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, The State of Georgia, and the Atlanta City Council in connection with the 1996 Olympic Games..

Bob currently conducts International Protocol and Cross Cultural workshops for Saint Joseph's University Executive MBA Program, The American University Business Council for International Understanding, Washington, DC, and the United States Air Force Air University, Maxwell AFB.  He also delivers numerous protocol lectures and speeches to corporations and associations including the Los Angeles and Philadelphia World Affairs Councils, The Southern Center for International Studies, as well as multiple engagements for Delta Airlines and Motorola.

Bob, a Certified Meeting Professional, has been featured in articles in the New York Times Sunday business magazine, The American Express Travel and Leisure Magazine, and The Philadelphia Inquirer.  He is a member of the board of directors of the Philadelphia International Visitors Council and the New York Council of Protocol Executives.

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Trevor Gatty - International Protocol Expert & Associate

A widely-traveled International Business Consultant, former career Diplomat and Protocol Advisor to the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, Trevor Gatty draws on his extensive background in world trade and international relations to the programs he leads for The Lett Group.

Mr. Gatty's British Diplomatic Service career focused primarily on International Trade and Investment, as well as Systems Analysis and Strategic and Organizational Planning. After selection as a Diplomatic Service Inspector (the US equivalent is Inspector-General) he visited British diplomatic posts worldwide to review their operations and make recommendations directly to the Secretary of State. His own overseas postings included Zaire, Thailand, Switzerland, and San Francisco and culminated in appointment as British Consul-General for the Southeastern United States, where he led the Atlanta Consular Corps as its Dean.

Capitalizing on his contacts, fluency in languages ( French, Spanish, German, Thai) and his expertise in negotiation and international relations, Mr. Gatty left the Diplomatic Service to establish his presence in international protocol and etiquette consulting.

In 1994, at the request of the British Government, he opened an Honorary British Consulate in Charlotte to cover North Carolina.

As Protocol Advisor to the 1996 Olympic Games, he wrote training manuals and volunteer handbooks on International Protocol and Etiquette and undertook other relevant studies, including Organization and Structure, V.I.P handling and Victory Ceremonies.  He has since published Guides to International Etiquette and to Protocol in International Business.

Mr. Gatty lectures on international affairs and has published articles in newspapers and specialist journals in the Southeastern USA.  In Atlanta, he was a founding Member and Director of the World Trade Club and of the British American Business Council (which is one of over 30 branches in the United Kingdom and the United States).  He is Co-Founder, Past President and currently a Director of the Charlotte branch of the British American Business Council, as well as a Director of the Charlotte World Trade Association and a member of the Mayor's International Cabinet. He also served on the Governor's Task Force on Tourism.

    BCI President Anne M. Shibata has an MA in Intercultural Communication, speaks fluent Japanese and lived and worked in Japan from 1982-1998.  An experienced businesswoman, trainer, teacher, and international consultant, she has been helping clients to cross cultural, linguistic and psychological borders for 16 years.  While in Japan, she appeared on weekly television programs for four years, had a radio program, and lectured extensively in Japanese on cross-cultural issues in schools, universities and at government agencies.  Ms. Shibata was President of both New York English School and Intercultural Communication Services, two companies with multi-national staffs which she founded and managed.

    Her community work also focuses on creating cross-cultural understanding.  She was instrumental in arranging several fundraisers in Fukuoka, Japan that brought together the Japanese and foreign communities.  Ms. Shibata also served as national President of AFWJ, a professional organization of expatriate women living and working in Japan.

    In addition to her business and community experience, she was Asst. Professor of Communication for Chikushi Jogakuen University.  Since returning to the US she has taught "Communication Among Cultures" at State University of New York, College at New Paltz.  In her academic career, she has published and presented extensively in the field of cross-cultural understanding.  Most recently, she presented research at the NY Conference on Asian Studies, the Japan Association of Language Teachers Conference in Okayama, Japan, and the Hong Kong Baptist University in Kowloon, Hong Kong, China.  She was one of only two non-Japanese researchers invited to join the Japan Communication Researchers Meeting (Nihon Komyunikashun Kenkyusha Kaigi).  She conducted extensive cross-cultural training workshops at various sites in Japan.  Ms. Shibata finds a great deal of satisfaction in helping clients build successful business relationships based on cultural understanding, and firmly believes that in the Global Village, "The only borders remaining are the ones in our minds."

Contact Information

Web address
http://www.bestweb.net/~bci/

Office phone
(914) 876-0758

FAX number
(914) 876-0758