Currently the Parent Company is a private company wholly owned by its director/ shareholders. The Company is organized into three divisions:

Reading Master and associated products (specializing in early development products, more particularly in systems for early reading, mathematics and brain development and the early development of universal values)

TPC Software specializing in interactive CD-Rom and DVD design and production.

Business Excellence Architects Ltd (One on one CEO coaching and organizational training and facilitation in Bus'X' and TurboSigma Improvement Software and some expanded applications of these models and processes for organizations that are serious about making quick, simple strides toward achieving Malcolm Baldrige Award-winning quality and international competitiveness.

Key Founding Directors

The company that is now known as the Parent Company was founded on July 4, 1993 by Grant and Denise Ford as a result of the almost miraculous results produced by their early research and experimentation in early childhood development. The company has changed its name, diversified and expanded internationally since converting a dining room in Auckland, New Zealand and purchasing a 386 computer, but its founders continue to be the proactive, driving force behind its Mission.

Denise Ford

Parent, Authoress, Product Designer, and Educational Director

Denise's Background

Denise was born and educated in New Zealand. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree (1984) from Auckland University that includes Anthropology, Psychology, Sociology, Education and Music.

The motivation for Denise's work originated with and still comes from her children, Michael, Magdalen and baby William. After having her first child, she realized the importance of education and particularly reading. She also realized something so important could not be left to chance or to someone else. She combined the knowledge she had from her degree with more research done from home.

The ideas of leading educators were out to the test on her first child and the results were carefully monitored. Her son achieved amazing results with some of the methods and of particular note was some of the work of Glen Doman and his accelerated learning template of flashcards. Denise found other components that she now considers to be crucial in learning to read. The work of Spalding and Spalding in the area of 'phonics' - or the sounding out of words, far from being incompatible with Doman's work, proved even more powerful when combined with it. Phonics of course is now starting to become an important part of the education system again. There were few materials available at this time and much controversy over whether phonics or accelerated learning templates or other methods were better.

Denise and her husband Grant decided to integrate the things that worked best out of each of these methods and release a hybrid, 'best practice' system of their own that maximized the value of each approach through a few practical innovations of their own. Denise believes that learning systems must not follow trends. She believes our many different learning styles dictate a mix of methods being available at all times and that whatever works should be the only criteria applied when selecting a method for a particular child. Failure to read for any child is a totally unacceptable, avoidable and highly limiting set back in anyone's life.

Denise is the authoress of the 27 children's educational books contained within the Reading Master system. She the co-authoress of The Reading Revolution - The easy way to teach your baby to read even before starting school with journalist Gordon Dryden and of The Reading Master and ReadingMaster-Math Guidebooks with husband, Grant. Denise is the Co-Designer of the Reading Master and ReadingMaster -Math systems. She is also authoress of ten titles currently in the Denise Book Range and the long awaited and soon to be published handbook for parents; "Parents as First Teachers".

( Denise Books and are an extension of Reading Master techniques. However perhaps even more important is their content. Denise Books are a values based series of first reader books that utilize the three different approaches to reading - contextual, whole word and phonics, to help children accelerate in reading but also read about people performing acts of courage, generosity and good humored, good will to others.)

Other products are under development within the Reading Master and associated products division of The Parent Company.

Download Denise's business card as a PDF!!!!

Grant Ford

Parent, organizational and leadership coach, change agent, author, instructional designer, trainer, multimedia designer programmer, national quality award examiner, Trade New Zealand E-Commerce and Export Award judge and managing director.

Grant is a renowned organizational coach and change agent who has worked with many of New Zealand's largest and some of its smallest organizations. He is a past National Examiner for New Zealand's National Quality Award, trainer of National Quality Award Examiners and the former National Program Manager for the New Zealand equivalent of the US Malcolm Baldrige Award.

Grant has won academic prizes at tertiary level in English and has a BA which includes English, mathematics, physics, philosophy and history. He has designed and delivers common sense tools to many individuals and corporations who wish to create enthusiastic customers, enthusiastic employees and highly financially rewarded stakeholders.

Grant is the author of 'The Skinny Book of Planning' for creative team based planning and the 'Skinny Book of Change'. He is the inventor of the '5 Petal Improvement Process', multimedia author/programmer of the CD-Rom software of the same name and author of the Skinny Book of Improvement. He is the inventor-designer-author-programmer of best practice software for self-assessment of an organization against the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence and developer of the continuous planning process - "How can you change your plan if you haven't got a plan?" He is the co-creator of the world renowned Reading Master and ReadingMaster-Math early learning systems. He is also a talented musician and spent a small amount of time as a recording artist.

One conference attendee described Grant as "a gifted speaker and has the ability to inspire, enthuse, motivate and amuse ..'Life has equipped Grant to effectively communicate a simple, holistic framework for change"

Download Grant's business card as a PDF!!!!