Adept in linguistics and psychology, Elisabeth S. Wilton, PhD, claims language is her first and greatest love because she likes words and why people speak the way they do. As president of her own company for 17 years, consulting at Wilton Associate, Inc. in McLean, Virginia, she worked with other contractors for the government. A couple of times Dr. Wilton contracted directly with the government. However, most of the time she was a sub-contractor to other contractors. She was doing training with the new employees that were hired.
Prior to this role, Dr. Wilton began her career as a linguist, translating French, German, Spanish, and Romanian, for the U.S. government in Washington in 1959, remaining in this role for two decades. She then served as a psychologist from 1979 to 1998, retiring from government practice. Dr. Wilton has always liked different languages and different cultures. She toyed with the idea of being an anthropologist or archeologist. She not only wanted to just go visit places around the world, but also actually wanted to live there and get to know the people, through which the best doorway was learning new languages.
Before the start of her professional career, Dr. Wilton pursued a formal education at Lawrence University, earning a Bachelor of Arts in 1958. She then matriculated at the University of Maryland, where she obtained a Master of Education in 1970 and PhD in 1978. She also became a certified clinical hypnotherapist through the National Board in 2005. In addition, Dr. Wilton earned a Fulbright scholarship to Berlin and studied Russian and 15th-century Spanish. She later transferred to Hamburg, Germany, and changed her major from Germanistic languages to a pre-law program. She was part of an experimental group looking at the legal responsibility of prisoners, which laid the groundwork for her becoming a psychologist.
A prolific writer, Dr. Wilton has written one book, “Taking Charge: Conversations on Building Life Skills,” self-published through Lu Lu in 2006. Additionally, she has authored two poems, “Lost Freedom” in 1999 and “Siblings” in 2006. Outside of her primary trade, Dr. Wilton served as secretary of the Personality Assessment System Foundation from 2004 to 2013, which exists to further the study of the relationship between intelligence and other personality variables as they interact to influence human behavior.
Now in retirement, Dr. Wilton resides in Virginia and is the proud mother of one wonderful son, Bart Wilton Jenkins, as well as a grandmother to two beloved grandchildren. In honor of her accomplishments, she has been listed in the 61st through 63rd editions of Who’s Who in America.