Personal Profile

INTERNET POTENTIAL CONSULTANTS LLC is the management organization of Ralph D Harris MD, MBA. It incorporates several functions, which may be summarized in its motto and mission “To Do Something Different to Make a Difference”.

Ralph D Harris, now semi-retired, acts as the Managing Director and President and has been privileged to enjoy a very varied and interesting career as a medical missionary, hospital administrator, medical director in  H.M.O and Physician-hospital organizations, university professor, realtor, businessman and investor.

Ralph was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1937, as the eldest of 5 children of a family that was threatened by the oppressive policies of the ruling government of the time. His father was employed as a brick mason, and his mother was an elementary school teacher. When he was 13 years old, the family moved from Johannesburg to Cape Town to provide opportunities for the children’s education. With the inspiration and under their strict discipline and the insistence on excellence of his mother, Ralph was inspired to apply himself to his scholastic studies, and in 1954 attained honors as he graduated from high school.  This enabled him to earn several scholarships for entrance into a university education. He then received an unsolicited offer for total financial support from a philanthropist, Sir Ernest Oppenheimer (founder of De Beers and Anglo-American Corporation), allowing him to pursue 6 years of medical training at the University of Cape Town Medical School,  and graduate with a doctoral degree in 1960.

Soon after graduation Ralph and his new bride, Esme, left South Africa, bound for Malawi and Zambia, Central Africa, to serve 6 years as medical missionaries at rural hospitals in those countries. The birth of their 2 children in Malawi, and the unstable political situation in South Africa, resulted in a decision not to return to South Africa, but to emigrate to the U.S.A. in 1967. There followed 4 years of post-graduate training in Chicago, as a pediatrician and pediatric nephrologist;  20+ years of teaching, research, practice and administration as associate professor at Loma Linda University Medical School in California; and 4 years as director of a large HMO clinic in California, while acquiring a masters degree in business administration. In 1994, as the children were completing their university training, Karen as a health educator with an M.P.H degree, and Duncan as a Urology surgeon, the family relocated to join their new grandchildren in the beautiful resort city of Coeur d’ Alene in the Panhandle of Northern Idaho.

Ralph has continued his interest and involvement in international medicine. He was able to spend several short terms of service in Africa and the Far East, as lecturer, relief physician and researcher. His most recent tour of duty was as medical director of a research project using lifestyle public health measures for the successful intervention in the epidemic of Type 2 Diabetes in the Republic of the Marshall Islands in 2006.