We are LivingWorks – the world’s leading suicide prevention and intervention training company. We believe that suicide can be preventable, and everyone can play a role in building suicide-safer communities.
LivingWorks is a mission-driven organisation with an industry-leading approach to suicide prevention: we want to empower everyone to play a role. Guided by our values and our commitment to across-the-board quality, we’re here to help make communities everywhere safer from suicide. With an array of integrated training programs to meet every need, we’ve been providing communities and organisations with suicide prevention and intervention solutions for over 40 years.
We believe that when people with complementary, integrated skills come together, they achieve a greater impact than any of them could alone. That’s why we focus on a community-wide, collaborative approach that empowers everyone to play a role.
From beginners to professionals, we offer programs for all skill levels in the belief that every person can learn to make a difference. When these participants come together to build safety networks in their communities, they create a powerful transformation.
In all that we do, we’re guided by our vision, mission, and values. They help set our direction, keep us true to our goals, and drive us to seek meaningful relationships with our customers and trainers.
We imagine a world in which people with thoughts of suicide or experiences are well supported to keep safe, access help, and find hope.
We provide unique, quality training that empowers individuals, organisations, and communities to work together to keep people safer from suicide.
that the possibility of suicide is present in every community and culture.
that people considering suicide can be supported to make life-saving choices.
that these life-saving choices are facilitated when:
that people are more willing and able to provide this help if they are well prepared.
individuals should prepare for their helping role by choosing a training program that will best support their needs.
to provide a consistent standard of training, while respecting and incorporating the diverse learnings and experiences of each participant.
to continuous improvement—guided by quality, value, evidence and experience.
that everyone has a role to play in preventing suicide.
that sustained personal, social, and financial commitment to training and providing help will result in fewer suicides.
We seek to create and maintain a place where anyone can come, just as they are, regardless of their background, beliefs or culture to learn skills to address the issue of suicide. They can then take those skills back to the communities they come from and create suicide safety.
LivingWorks recognises the important and complex social and political issues affecting our world. In our training, we acknowledge that there are conflicting positions on many issues. The sole issue we advocate for is suicide prevention. For this reason, LivingWorks maintains neutrality on non-suicide issues while respecting individual journeys.
We invite you to join our Network of Safety.
Come as you are. Learn skills. Build relationships. Respect others. Bring Hope to your community.
Lance Armstrong is CEO. He studied finance and marketing before obtaining his law degree at the University of Alberta. After five years of legal practice at a firm where he focused mainly on tax and estate planning, he founded Armstrong and Partners in 2000. Under his guidance and leadership, Armstrong and Partners provided counsel to clients on matters of business, legal, and financial strategy.
As LivingWorks USA began to grow in the early 2000s, Lance worked with the company to facilitate the integration of its Canadian and US operations. This ongoing relationship and affinity for LivingWorks’ values and mission led to him deciding to join LivingWorks as a Board member, owner, and succession partner in 2015.
Shayne Connell, Executive Vice President of Commercialization, focuses on strategically shaping and executing the Marketing and Commercialization vision for LivingWorks.
Shayne Connell, MBA, has extensive leadership experience in social cause organizations and as an elected official. He previously served as a manager and coordinator in the cancer research fundraising field and represented the people of Newcastle, Australia, as a city councillor.
Shayne holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and an MBA from the University of Newcastle, Australia, and has been extensively involved in suicide prevention as both a LivingWorks trainer and coach—where he has delivered over 100 workshops—and as a coordinator and crisis counselling volunteer with Lifeline Australia.
Pete Gutierrez, Executive Vice President of Innovation, oversees development and maintenance of LivingWorks’ training programs, the research and evaluation agendas, and provides suicide subject matter expertise. He earned his PhD in clinical psychology in 1997 and has served as a faculty member at Northern Illinois University and the University of Colorado School of Medicine, and was a clinical/research psychologist with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
He has been a suicide prevention researcher for over 25 years and has directed or co-directed multiple large federally funded research projects including the Military Suicide Research Consortium funded by the U.S. Department of Defense. Pete is also a past-president and former Board member of the American Association of Suicidology, a Fellow of the International Academy of Suicide Research, an associate editor of the journal Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, and is a licensed psychologist in the state of Colorado.
Pete enjoys traveling, cooking, biking, and hiking with his partner as among his favorite ways to spend time outside of work.
Tim Houle, Chief Financial Officer, oversees LivingWorks Financial processes and outcomes including planning, reporting, analysis and people performance to support LivingWorks' strategic initiatives and sustainability. He earned his CGA designation in 1992 and led his own public accounting practice until 2007.
Tim has extensive entrepreneurial experience, having founded and managed two corporations in the construction and home furnishing industries. His entrepreneurial perspective contributes to LivingWorks' effective financial stewardship and long-term growth in our mission to save lives from suicide.
He is a passionate supporter of suicide prevention work, and counts cycling, hiking, flying, and automotives among his hobbies.
Kendra Kruger, Chief Operating Officer, is responsible for shaping and executing LivingWorks operations, with emphasis on developing, implementing and improving operational business systems. With over 20 years of consulting and project leadership experience, Kendra has a proven track record of delivering instrumental business and technology solutions to achieve organizational goals and enhance operational performance.
Sharon Sutton has extensive experience in counseling and clinical psychology, and is both a LivingWorks ASIST and LivingWorks safeTalk trainer. As Executive Vice President of Training and Delivery she oversees strategic planning, implementation, and delivery of LivingWorks programs and contracts.
A Veteran of the United States Army, Sharon served as an officer, a professor at West Point, a social entrepreneur, and has worked around the US in states including Alabama, North Carolina, New York, Maryland and Texas.
During her recent time as a civilian worker at the Fort Hood military base, she was instrumental in creating a viable suicide prevention program for soldiers and the surrounding community including local school systems. The results of her efforts included 5,000 school-age children, staff, and faculty being trained in suicide prevention and awareness, and 15,000 members of Fort Hood being trained in LivingWorks ASIST.
Richard Ramsay completed his master’s degree in Social Work at McGill University. Beginning his career at the John Howard Society in Ottawa in 1966, he trained volunteers to work the phones at one of Ottawa’s first crisis hotlines before moving back to his native Alberta in 1969.
He was Director of Care at Edmonton’s Maple Ridge Residential Treatment Centre until 1975, when he moved to Calgary to take a position as a social work professor. It was while serving as a professor at the University of Calgary that he became involved in volunteer activities coordinated by the Canadian Mental Health Association and met Bryan Tanney, forming the beginning of the RTTL partnership.
Honored with numerous awards for his contributions to social work and suicide prevention locally and globally, Richard retired as a professor in 2004 but remains an active leader at LivingWorks. He served as President from LivingWorks' inception through to 2017, when he transitioned to the role of President Emeritus to focus on mentorship and guidance for staff, leaders, and trainers.
Brian Olson has been involved with LivingWorks as the Board Chair for seven years. He also holds board and directorship positions with a number of other private companies and charities in the Calgary and Okotoks areas.
Prior to his involvement in board stewardship, he spent two decades as a senior executive in the energy and manufacturing sector. He has always had a passion for public service, consulting, and corporate responsibility, and feels a strong affinity for the mission of suicide prevention.
He became involved with charitable activities in 1984, and has managed at least two active fundraising campaigns ever since. He counts horses among his greatest passions, and devotes as much of his free time as he can to training and riding.
John W. F. Cowell, M.D., has extensive experience as an executive leader in the fields of health and safety. He has served as Official Administrator for Alberta Health Services, Chief Executive Officer for the Health Quality Council of Alberta, and President and CEO of the Workers’ Compensation Board of Alberta.
Prior to these appointments he held the position of Corporate Vice President with NOVA Corporation of Alberta, where he was responsible for health, safety, and environment. Dr. Cowell also taught for over 30 years as a Clinical Professor at the University of Calgary’s Department of Community Health Services, and has published numerous papers on injury prevention.
He focuses on ways of improving access to safety, suicide prevention, and mental health resources at the population level.
For nearly four decades, we’ve been world leaders in suicide intervention training. From a small start-up to a global company, we’ve always wondered: how can we make the world a better place?
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We’ve come a long way! Our founders have transitioned to make way for a new leadership, though Richard Ramsay remains active as a member of our board of governors. Here’s what we’ve achieved to date:
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