Alexandria A. Windcaller, M.H.S.A., is an internationally recognized consultant in the field of conflict management. She is the Founder and CEO of Response Training Programs LLC, a staff development consulting firm specializing in crisis intervention trainings. She was a certified emergency medical technician for sixteen years. Her first edition of Leading Chaos; An Essential Guide To Conflict Management was published in 2002. She authored a column called “Off the Mat” for Aikido Today Magazine between 2000 and 2005. She is the Chief Instructor of Wendell Aikido, a martial arts dojo in western Massachusetts.

A woman had brought in her computer for some complicated and multiple repairs... I gave her the estimate last week and she'd o.k.'ed them. She called earlier this week and was all upset because the computer wasn't done yet. She was so upset that she wasn't thinking clearly because she then announced that she was angry because all sorts of things were being done to her computer and she never even got an estimate. Before reading your book that would have really flustered me... but I paused, and then calmly and matter-of-factly (not defensively) told her, 'Yes, I did,' followed immediately by, 'Would you like me to go over the numbers again?' That calmed her right down. I went over the numbers again, and by the time we were done, she'd remembered that we had gone over all of it the week before and was happy to know that repairs were almost done.

It's been like magic. I get a lot of stressed out people coming in here, and now I suddenly having the ability to calm them down enough so they can think about what decisions they need to make. It is so amazingly empowering. You have given people a powerful resource in this book.