About Us

Richard West

is a designer and facilitator of human development journeys. He holds a Master's degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of Illinois, after which he taught farm management at the college level and managed his own agricultural business for thirteen years.

From 1971 he has been consultant, project director, facilitator, researcher, and coach/mentor as needed in ICA ventures. He has worked 38 years in Asian countries including living in Malaysia, Indonesia, India and Taiwan and on shorter term projects in Nigeria, Egypt, Australia, Canada, the U.S., Thailand, Korea, China and the Philippines. His clients include companies, government agencies, foundations, and communities and most importantly individuals.

He is currently Executive Director of ICA Taiwan directing his major efforts to coaching and mentoring in connection with organizational transformation and personal development, although he continues work with a selected group of clients.

Lawrence Philbrook

Director of ICA Taiwan, is a facilitator and organizational transformation consultant, has been designing processes for teams and leaders in varied cultural settings for over twenty years. Lawrence joined the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) in 1972 and has worked outside the US since 1977 doing extensive company and community-based projects in 20 nations.

After the leaving the US his first ten years was focused on designing and facilitating effective development partnerships between private companies, government organizations, other non-profits and rural communities which included large projects of over 200 communities in India and 1500 in Kenya, East Africa.

In 1985 Lawrence while continuing community based projects began doing work with the other organizations involved bringing the same change processes and methodologies into the workplace. Over the past 20 years he has become a much sought after facilitator and trainer of leaders and facilitators involved in long term organizational change. His clients have included organizations in the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan as well as regional organizations across the world. His approach to organizations is a bit unique in that he focuses on long term change and leadership development so works with clients in a multiple year change process including group and individual leadership coaching. Corporate clients have included local and multinational organizations such as OCBC Bank, Citibank, Shell Oil, Caltex, Compaq Computers, TUV Rheinland and Aetna Life Insurance.

Lawrence continues work in community development, seeing the benefit not only to the community but also as a way to personally connect with the culture and spirit of the people in each location. He has lived in Asia for the past twenty years, 16 of these in Taiwan.

Gail West

Director of ICA Taiwan since 1991, has spent the last forty-one years in human development projects within companies, government organizations, in local communities and not for-profit groups in Asia, Europe and the US. She has been instrumental in contributing to ICA's "Technology of Participation", and has for the last several years been in intensive collaborative alliances to introduce Open Space Technology, community building, mediation, crisis intervention, the International Association of Facilitators and other "individual potential" technologies in Asia, integrating them into a transformational format for organizations and individuals. Her work has included long-term consultancies with people at all organizational levels as well as community people in multi-cultural environments in Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Hong Kong, Japan and Viet Nam. Gail's current focus is on coaching and mentoring those people of all ages and positions in society who are concerned with "learning for the future".

Gail has a BA in Physiology and worked in the US for 15 years as a Research Associate at the University of Colorado Medical Center, the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota and Cook County Hospital, Chicago before joining ICA.

Evelyn Philbrook

Evelyn joined the Institute of Cultural Affairs, USA in 1972, attending ICA’s Academy in Chicago in the winter of 1973, and was invited to join the faculty as Dean of Students the following year. She participated in the Town Meeting 76 campaign as both a workshop leader and group facilitator in the states of California, Oklahoma, Texas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia and North Carolina. Her experience and skills from ICA's community development project in Gibson, North Carolina was transferred to the Human Development Project in Ijede, Ikorodu, Nigeria. Since then she has worked with communities in Kenya, the Philippines, Malaysia and Taiwan working with local community development projects in mother/child health care, and women’s projects supporting community leaders. She also worked with companies including 3M, the National Rubber Board and Phillip Morris in Nigeria in 1990. From 1991 – 2006 she held the position of office manager of the upper school at Taipei American School, retiring after 15 years.

Evelyn rejoined ICA Taiwan in 2006 and became an international board member of ICA International, ending her four year term as the Vice President of Asia and the Pacific in 2010. Evelyn attended the UNDP leadership training for Social Artistry program in 2009 under the Jean Houston Foundation in Ashland, Oregon and has continued sharing Social Artistry work in Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan, Bangladesh, and Nepal. She is currently researching and helping to guide and design a new program, the Profound Journey Dialogue with ICA Taiwan

Global Certified ICA Technology of Participation (TOP) Facilitators in Taiwan and China:

Paulina Pei-Lin Chu - Taipei

Shawn Chung - Taipei

Laura I-Chen Hsu - Taipei

Lee Young Seok 이영석 - South Korea

Karen Lim En Chi - Shenzhen, China

Frieda Szu Ling Lin - Taipei

Mark Pixley - Shenzhen, China

Jorie Tzy Hsin Wu - Taipei