I’m Thomas, founder of North Road Coaching. I spent my early career living around the world, oftentimes in conflict or post-conflict countries, working on projects funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and developing an interest in conflict resolution.

I trained in mediation and negotiation with MWI in Boston and the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, respectively, and mediated disputes at Boston small claims courts. Later on, I taught conflict resolution at Javeriana University in Bogotá, Colombia, where my students included members of the Unidad Policial para la Edificación de la Paz—the police force's Special Peacebuilding Unit, created to carry out the Colombian government’s commitments under the peace deal signed with the FARC.  

After years in this field, however, I began to suspect that something was missing: some of my students and clients were so anxious about mediation that it showed up in physical symptoms, rendering them unable to substantively engage. Others were traumatized by the very conflicts that called for mediation in the first place, and that trauma demanded all my attention. I spent three years learning a somatic approach to treating the physical manifestations of stress, anxiety, and trauma, as developed by Dr. Peter Levine and systematized by Somatic Experiencing International. 

 I founded North Road Coaching to offer the combination of these disciplines to my clients.