Ryan T. Hartwig, Ph.D., serves as Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, California. Ryan has led, trained and developed teams focusing on community development, discipleship, missions, leadership development, academic excellence, fundraising and marketing for over twenty-five years. 
Ryan’s first book, Teams That Thrive, provides an in-depth exploration of healthy team leadership. His second book, Leading Small Groups That Thrive, helps small group leaders learn how to catalyze transformational small group experiences. 
Ryan’s academic scholarship has been published in the Journal of Applied Communication Research, the Southern Communication Journal, Group Facilitation: A Research and Applications Journal, and The International Encyclopedia of Organizational Communication, presented at numerous academic conferences, and is recognized with several awards from the National Communication Association.