Jon DeVries, Jr.

Jon DeVries, Jr., is a consultant and trainer, specializing in intercultural competence development, leadership development, team building and training design. With a background in experiential education and adult learning theories, he applies sound research-based methods to designing training programs specific for the needs of the clients.

Jon’s experience includes working with individuals and with groups ranging in size from three to 75+ at a time. He works with large multinational corporations, small businesses, universities and colleges (faculty, staff and students) in the U.S. and abroad, K-12 settings (staff and students), government agencies (such as the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, and the Government of Oman), and nonprofit organizations. He has worked with individuals from more than 35 different cultures both within the U.S. and in other home countries.

Jon works with multicultural teams to grow their abilities to work across their cultures and to maximize the talents and backgrounds of members of the team. Training topics include pre-departure and reentry for work, volunteer and study abroad, thriving in a new culture through intercultural competency while on a work- or study-abroad assignment, training leaders to work with their groups more effectively, and building successful teams. He has worked with groups who will be living on their own, living with host families, living in a “created new culture” composed of members of many different backgrounds, or living in “bubble” groups with their home-culture colleagues in hotels, dormitories, etc., within the host culture.

He is certified in the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) and the Cultural Detective. He also utilizes the Personal Leadership methodology, Strengths Finder, Kolb’s Learning Styles Inventory, and a wide background of experiential education and adult learning theory as foundations and tools for his training.

Jon has taught college-level courses including, “Intercultural Competence: Succeeding/Thriving in your host country,” “College Success for First-Year Students,” intercultural communication, public speaking, and diversity and inclusion. He spent fall semester 2007 as a faculty member teaching intercultural communication on the inaugural voyage of The Scholar Ship, a trans-national university taking place on a converted cruise ship. Students and faculty came from 50+ cultures and lived and learned together, both on the ship and while experiencing academic field programs in multiple countries during the voyage. Jon was formerly program director for Short Term Programs in the International Student and Scholar Services Office at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minn.

In his professional and private lives, Jon enjoys leading student travel courses and service learning trips. He has been a fellow at SIIC: Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication in Portland, Ore., and is an active board member in the SIETAR-Minnesota (Society for Intercultural Education, Training, and Research) organization. Jon has presented at the local, national, and global SIETAR levels, and at The Forum on Workplace Inclusion, among other conferences. He is also a certified Music Together® instructor through the nationally accredited Music Together program.