Title: Executive Director, Founder

Company: Counseling and Mediation Center, Inc

Location: Berkley, Calif.

For 38 years, Ingrid Kepler-May has served as the executive director and founder of Family Mediation Center Inc, a counseling and mediation center located in Berkeley, Calif. Ms. Kepler-May was one of the first professionals on the west coast offering family mediation, family therapy and couples counseling. She pursued the path of family therapy because of her desire to help save marriages.

As a woman in today’s world, Ms. Kepler-May attributes her success to thinking more laterally. She has also maintained her compassion, cooperation, and empathy and sympathy throughout more than three decades of practice. She believes her greatest strength to be her interpersonal communication and her genuine love for the human kind. Dedicated to helping couples or families find resolutions, she is inspired by witnessing her clients’ have a real interest and openness to collaborate with one another and with her.

Ms. Kepler-May received a Master of Education in educational psychology, anthropology and sociology from Columbia University. In addition, she earned a Master of Arts in Germanic languages, literature and linguistics from UCLA. While attending Columbia University, she studied collaborative problem-solving under the guidance of Professor Morton Deutsch, who is the author of “The Resolution of Conflict Through Cooperation.” Also while in New York, she studied family therapy at the Ackerman Family Therapy Institute.

Looking ahead, Ms. Kepler-May intends to continue her work in counseling. Her goal is to continue to be successful in helping people resolve their own conflicts. Also in the near future, she would like to focus more on women’s rights and liberation. The advice she offers to the younger generation of women entering the workforce is: “Competition doesn’t work anymore. Focus on the positive.”