An interest in how people listen and respond to others has given Ryan Warner a career that he sees as a path to lead others to recognition, healing and leadership.

Today Warner shares those insights through his consulting firm, RC Warner Consulting LLC, and as director of psychological health at the Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque.

Warner, the son of Geri Price-Warner of Homewood and Ray Warner of Sauk Village, graduated from Homewood-Flossmoor High School in 2009. He entered the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on scholarship, but he didn’t declare a major. “I had no clue,” he recalled.

He worked summers as a physical therapist technician and found that patients coming in for treatment were willing to talk to him about how the injury was impacting their lives. It got him interested in a profession in the health field, and he went on to earn his bachelor’s degree in community health rehabilitation.

He met his wife, Jemia, while both were students at U of I.

Warner decided to continue in the field. He pursued a master’s degree, again on scholarship, in rehabilitation psychology from the University of Wisconsin. The degree’s focus is “on helping individuals with disabilities function better throughout their lives.”

Warner does outreach on diversity and leadership, in addition to counseling clients. He says he knows what it feels like to be discriminated against and he wants to help others recognize that a change of attitude can make life better for all.

Warner said there are ways “to talk about how to respect each other and each other’s differences. That we may have a bias that impacts how we work with others, not just racially but gender bias or related to religion. 

“Being able to teach how to respect other people can really be helpful, as well as effective leadership. That’s something that I also teach companies: how to be an empathic leader. When somebody comes to you and they need some assistance, how can you best support them. There’s a lot of different ways to improve inclusivity in the work environment and still follow those (federal) guidelines that are out,” he said.

Experiences during his college years helped shape his professional interests.

“During my master’s program, due to the experiences I had going to a predominately white institution, I got really interested in how I could do research and understand how I could better support that population. I started to volunteer at first with my professor doing research on that topic. I realized I was really passionate about research, and helping people to thrive in their lives.”

His final step was earning a doctorate in counseling psychology from Marquette University. He attended on a military scholarship, “but I went into (the military) to enhance my leadership abilities. During my Ph.D. program I was involved in leadership positions on campus and throughout the nation, and I found out I was really passionate about leadership and making change.”  

He said he found himself being singled out more for being Black than for being educated. Sometimes it’s been by outward actions, like having the N-word shouted at him. Other times it’s been covert, like people assuming by his appearance that he’s a basketball player. He calls that a mini-aggression.

“I’m tall and slender built and (students) would ask me, ‘What time’s the game?’  At first it was funny but then it became impactful when everyone started to question my academic abilities and question why I was at this university,” he recalled.

Mini-aggressions are helping Warner make his points with his audiences about discrimination and diversity.

At the Kirtland base, the Air Force captain is serving the 4,200 active duty military, their families and staff. Through his work as a clinical psychologist on base, he helps people deal with trauma, anxiety, grief and loss and daily work stress. He said he also does presentations promoting psychological wellbeing.

As the CEO of Warner Consulting, he is working with Fortune 500 companies and government agencies focusing on leadership, diversity and wellness.

“Everything that’s happened in society, that impacts a lot of workers and they bring that up to their executive leadership. Pretty much all the consulting work is by word of mouth, networking. There’s definitely a need,” he said, adding that every organization can improve “from making their workplace more respectful and inclusive.”