Shaun grew up and went to school in the United States and Canada -  living in Rye, New York, Houston, Texas and Ottawa, Ontario.  His high school education included Westchester High School, South Carleton High School, and the prestigious Rockliffe Park private school, Ashbury College.

In 1977, he attended the University of Waterloo, with a four-year major in Philosophy, and later went on to further attain his three-year professional CAAP (Communications and Advertising Accredited Professional) designation from the Institute of Communications and Advertising.

In 1981, Shaun began his career in advertising, working in account management with national and international advertising agencies.  During his tenure, his clients included Proctor & Gamble, A&P Food Stores, Honda, Calvin Klein, Wrangler Jeans, The Borden Company, WK Buckley, The Sun Publishing Company and more.  He filled in his spare time as a volunteer instructor with the ICA, teaching new students about client service fundamentals.

In 1986, Shaun left the world of advertising to open up a small chain of unique, interactive toy stores and novelty gift stores under the banners Kids and Stuff.  The stores were tremendously popular, and were consistently performing at the top of their categories in the malls.  The initial success was due to the unique retailing concept and an intensely high level of customer focus.  In 1991, however, the deep recession, shrinking margins, and intense competition forced the stores to close.  

During this period, Shaun had spent much of his spare time teaching adult education night courses on a variety of business topics for Algonquin College and the Carleton Board of Continuing Education.  When the toy stores closed, he decided to pursue his interest in teaching, and created a retail-focused marketing, customer service and sales training company, The Consortium.  The company grew at a rapid rate, and quickly became one of Canada's top retail training companies.  In 1997, the name changed to Belding Skills Development Corporation, and the focus of the training expanded to include management, leadership and teambuilding skills.  Shaun also decided to broaden the focus beyond retail to providing training and development solutions to the corporate, call center and public sectors.

In 2000 Shaun's first book, Dealing with the Customer from Hell - a survival guide, was published by Stoddart Publishing out of Toronto.  In the first year, sales of the book in The US, Canada, China and India was over 15,000 copies.  The book was featured in newspapers, magazines, television and radio - including Canada am, Entrepreneur Magazine, Forbes and The Globe & Mail.   The success was short-lived, however, as Stoddart, and General Publishing declared bankruptcy in the Fall of 2001.  

Fast-growing publishing house ECW Press picked the book up, and ECW president Jack David convinced Shaun to create a series from the concept.  Winning with the Customer from Hell - a survival guide, Winning with the Boss from Hell - a guide to life in the trenches, and Winning with the Employee from Hell - a guide to coaching and motivation were launched in May of 2004.  The newest book in the series, Winning with the Caller from Hell - a survival guide for doing business on the telephone, was released in the Fall of 2005.  They are all being tremendously well received, and have already been featured in The New York Times, Readers Digest, and the London Times, Montreal Gazette and other media.  The books are now all available in the UK and Europe from Kogan Page Publishing, as well as China, Russia, India and France, Turkey and Asia.

. Shaun is now working on the next book in the series, Winning with the Team from Hell - a guide to building a positive workplace.  Another book - a parable about the things big business can learn from little businesses - is scheduled for Spring, 2007.

Shaun and his wife of 24 years move their respective offices to their cottage on the Ottawa river each summer, where they are able to keep their perspectives on the things that are truly important.  Their three children give them a reason to smile every day.