John Grinder is a psychological
modeler and cofounder of
Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP). He obtained a degree in
psychology from the
University of San Francisco, and a PhD in
linguistics from the
University of California at San Diego.
He met a psychology student named Richard Bandler while teaching linguistics and Chomsky's transformational grammar at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Grinder was fascinated by the language patterns used by therapists, so he and Bandler began to identify and model the patterns of successful therapists in an effort that led to their development of Neurolinguistic Programming. The earliest therapists they modeled together were Fritz Perls, Virginia Satir and Milton Erickson. He and Bandler have co-authored a number of books on NLP.
Grinder says that his motivation comes from an addiction to excellence that began when he was 9 years old and has continued throughout his life. While he and Bandler no longer work together, both of them continue to develop the field of NLP.
Sources:
http://www.nlpu.com/grindbio.htm
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PatrickM/john.htm