Consulting, Coaching Production
Providing value and service to individual and corporate clients throughout the world
Consulting, Coaching Production
Providing value and service to individual and corporate clients throughout the world
About us
Our founder and Chair, Rick Dobbis, has a record of achievement as a senior executive in the music and entertainment industries and as a Certified Professional Coach with experience in markets throughout the world. It is this perspective that gives him unique insight for coaching clients in a full array of industries and cultures. This is particularly helpful when dealing with individuals and companies confronting change, transition and disruption. The company provides a variety of services in management, leadership and production in addition to coaching. Mary Ann Koenig, a partner in the firm, is a writer, historian and filmmaker with experience in a variety of cultures. She is also a fluent Spanish speaker. R-DOG’s latest film project A BOND UNBROKEN, the story of the Navy SEALs who served in Vietnam and their local combat interpreter is currently available on Amazon Prime and numerous other streaming services as well as on DVD. We are dog people!
Consultation
We work with individuals and teams to improve leadership and management skills in private and group sessions. We explore perceived strengths and weaknesses and create a plan requiring commitment and buy in to set improvement goals that are measurable and achievable. We take a realistic and hands on approach so that our services are seamless and supportive. We won't tell you what to do, but we will help you identify new goals and how to get there.
Coaching
Rick Dobbis is an International Coaching Federation (ICF) certified coach with extensive experience. He believes that coaching can be a very affective tool to help people working through changes or coming changes in their lives and careers. His extensive global work with creative artists and creative executives informs his coaching approach. His practice is largely focused on professional and/or cultural challenges. He utilizes many recognized coaching tools in addition to his intuitive listening, focus on emotional intelligence, authenticity and ability to help people work through the blocks that may be holding them back.
More!
Books by Mary Ann Koenig available at www.amazon.com
THE BEARD Cuban Revolutionary Elário Cuello is thrust into a world of political intrigue and wanton surrogate sex. Unsophisticated and alone in the world, his fellow soldier Juan Arellano Crespo is his only friend. This satirical, fictionalized memoire chronicles Elário’s saga, from comedy to despair. The Leader of the Cuban Revolution, a fabled Latin lover, becomes impotent after a demoralizing meeting with Richard Nixon. The Leader and his brother, Raul, force young Elário to become his stand-in. The problem is, Elário can’t grow a beard. A fake chin hair-piece consequently becomes his nocturnal disguise. Elário loathes the work, and the beard, but everything changes when he encounters Natalya, the beautiful and worldly Soviet spy sent to recruit the Leader to a Russian partnership. Elário and Natalya fall in love. They’re a kindred pair: she sleeps with heads of state at the orders of her government, and he sleeps with anyone the Leader tells him to. When Elário becomes aware that his beloved Revolution has turned into a dictatorship of intimidation, mass murder and fear, he knows he must find a way out. Can the lovers escape? Or will geo-political events, and the sins of Arellano Crespo, overwhelm them both?
For the first time, a Navy SEAL tells the story of the US's clandestine operations in North Vietnam and the Congo during the Cold War.
Sometime in 1965, James Hawes landed in the Congo with cash stuffed in his socks, morphine in his bag, and a basic understanding of his mission: recruit a mercenary navy and suppress the Soviet- and Chinese-backed rebels engaged in guerilla movements against a pro-Western government. He knew the United States must preserve deniability, so he would be abandoned in any life-threatening situation; he did not know that Che Guevara attempting to export his revolution a few miles away.
Cold War Navy SEAL gives unprecedented insight into a clandestine chapter in US history through the experiences of Hawes, a distinguished Navy frogman and later a CIA contractor. His journey began as an officer in the newly-formed SEAL Team 2, which then led him to Vietnam in 1964 to train hit-and-run boat teams who ran clandestine raids into North Vietnam. Those raids directly instigated the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. The CIA tapped Hawes to deploy to the Congo, where he would be tasked with creating and leading a paramilitary navy on Lake Tanganyika to disrupt guerilla action in the country. According to the US government, he did not, and could not, exist; he was on his own, 1400 miles from his closest allies, with only periodic letters via air-drop as communication. Hawes recalls recruiting and managing some of the most dangerous mercenaries in Africa, battling rebels with a crew of anti-Castro Cuban exiles, and learning what the rest of the intelligence world was dying to know: the location of Che Guevara.
In vivid detail that rivals any action movie, Hawes describes how he and his team discovered Guevara leading the communist rebels on the other side and eventually forced him from the country, accomplishing a seemingly impossible mission. Complete with never-before-seen photographs and interviews with fellow operatives in the Congo, Cold War Navy SEAL is an unblinking look at a portion of Cold War history never before told.
About Us
RICK DOBBIS
During his long career Rick Dobbis has achieved success in a wide variety of activities and in markets around the world focused on business development, marketing, artist development, team building and financial success. He has worked with creative executives and artists at all levels and from all over the world.
He has held senior management positions at a variety of music and entertainment companies including time as Senior Vice President at Arista Records, as General Manager of RCA Records and President of the PolyGram Label Group before expanding his responsibilities to markets around the world.
He moved to London to head EMEA for PolyGram and then back to the USA as President of Sony Music International leading all Sony Music operations outside the USA and Japan and Latin Music within the USA. He has worked with developing and superstar artists from all over the world including U2, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Beyonce, Celine Dion, Andrea Bocelli and many others.
Rick is currently Chairman of Rick Dobbis Organization, Global (R-DOG). R-DOG offers services to individuals and organizations including consultation, coaching and production. He is also a founding partner of myKaZootv which is developing music centric entertainment platforms for kids and families.
Rick has chosen to utilize his senior management and executive development talents as a coach, mentor and team builder to help individuals and organizations achieve their maximum potential. He is certified by the International Coach Federation and focuses on coaching and consulting executives, particularly at significant development points in their careers such as those in transition regarding responsibilities and culture.
R-DOG also produces audiovisual programming for general audiences and Rick was named an Official Artist four years in a row at the New York Television Festival (NYTVF). In 2013 at the NYTVF he was the winner of the History Channel sponsored competition with his program, Fire Bombers. R-DOG produced a long form documentary film called A Bond Unbroken, the story of the Navy SEALs who served in Vietnam with a local combat interpreter, and their reunion 45 years later. It was released by Cinedigm in 2018.
R-DOG consulting clients have ranged from the Rolling Stones to the US Navy SEALs/UDT Museum and Magnetic Collaborative, a leading experiential marketing agency, providing guidance in all aspects of management and leadership.
Rick holds a B.S. in Zoology from Syracuse University where the College of Arts & Sciences named him Distinguished Alumnus for the year 2002. Rick is also a member at the College of the Dean’s Board of Advisors. He is an Advisor to Funnel Music and Seven Seas Music and has served on numerous non-profit boards including VSA Arts and Education Through Music.
Rick has also served as an adjunct professor at New York University teaching International Music Business.
Mary Ann Koenig
917-656-2800
Mary Ann Koenig is a writer and filmmaker with experience across a variety of media platforms. She has directed, written and produced the award-winning documentary, A Bond Unbroken, distributed by Cinedigm, the story of Vietnam War–era Navy SEALs and a reunion with their combat interpreter 45 years later. She co-authored the memoir Cold War Navy SEAL, (Skyhorse Publishing) with former SEAL James M. Hawes chronicling his operation for the CIA when he was just 26-years-old and led a team that fought Che Guevara and communist rebels in the Congo. Mary Ann has worked as a features contributor to TCPalm, a regional USA Todaypublication in Florida, and writes for Indian River Magazine. She’s written for the Los Angeles Times, VAnguard Magazine, and Vertical Magazine. She also was a writer on L.A.’s KOST Radio feature “Behind The Song.” She has lived and worked in several countries including Spain, Israel, Mexico and the U.K. where she earned a BA in history from London Metropolitan University. She also has a Master’s Degree from Columbia University.
