President of the Board
Dr. Loren Toussaint is a professor of psychology at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. He is a consultant to Mayo Clinic, Cancer Treatment Centers of America, Boise State University, and the associate director of the Sierra Leone Forgiveness Project. Dr. Toussaint’s research examines virtues, especially forgiveness, and how they are related to health and well-being. He and colleagues recently published a compendium of research titled: Forgiveness and Health: Scientific Evidence and Theories Relating Forgiveness to Better Health (Springer). Dr. Toussaint directs the Laboratory for the Investigation of Mind, Body, and Spirit at Luther College (https://www.luther.edu/touslo01/). He encourages “everyday forgiveness” to build resilience and minimize stress in families, schools, healthcare, workplaces, and communities.
Vice President
Elizabeth “Liz” Gablehouse,(retired) was the International Development Representative at Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services, where she worked for 20 years. She completed her undergraduate studies abroad at the University of Bonn in Germany and Albert Schweitzer College near Lausanne, Switzerland. She began her marketing career working in various European countries and North Africa for 11 years. In the United States, she worked in the movie and recording industry in Los Angeles, and later in marketing in the securities industry. She is fluent in Spanish, French and German, and conducts business in those languages as necessary.
Treasurer and Director
Jim Dincalci, RSD, DD, MA (Psych), a psychotherapist and the founder and Executive Director of the Forgiveness Foundation. He has spent over 50 years using emotional, spiritual, psychological, and physical methods to help people feel better and heal their lives, and started teaching mindfulness, which is the use of specific awareness methods to deal with thoughts and feelings, meditation and other effective stress management and relief methods in universities and conferences 40 years ago. Since 1993, he has also been teaching and How to Forgive.
His four-time award-winning book, How to Forgive When You Can’t, which is full of mindfulness and stress relieve methods, is published in 9 languages and has sold 100,000 copies. He’s trained in traumatology as Red Cross Disaster Mental Health provider and Critical Incident Stress Management for first responder; has facilitated over 100 group sessions in Domestic violence & anger control; worked as a clinical therapist with the Hawaii Department of Education; is university trained in Neuro- and Biofeedback; and facilitates drug and alcohol rehab groups.
He has presented at conferences in Law Enforcement, Alternative health, Psychology, Stress Managements, Human trafficking, and seminars on how to deal with resentment, grudges and guilt. He has presented at two world Peace conference and several international conferences besides national and local conferences.