Joan Tobin
Joan Tobin has devoted her 22-year career to developing dispute resolution services and mediator training. In 1978, she opened the first non-profit divorce mediation agency in Phoenix. Later, she developed AIDS programs in Galveston, Texas, encouraging conflict management between HIV-infected patients and their families and doctors. Returning to Arizona, she served as Director of the Dispute Resolution Alternatives Office of the Superior Court of Arizona in Phoenix for seven years. She was a founding board member of the Arizona Dispute Resolution Association and has served as its president for three terms.

Joan is a graduate of Purdue and Indiana Universities and holds a master's degree in social work, community development, and management. She has served as an adjunct faculty member at the Arizona State University College of Law Mediation Clinic and has practitioner membership in the Academy of Family Mediators, the Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution, and the Conflict Resolution Education Network. In addition to consulting on the educational content of KnowConflict courses, she continues contributing to the community by mediating, training, and consulting on conflict management systems design. Joan believes people are the real experts on their own problems and that having conflict management/dispute resolution skills is essential to a happy, productive life.

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