Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and injustice.
- Robert F. Kennedy

In 1995-96, Dr. Ruth experienced bullying firsthand. It was at the hands of an out-of-control female tyrant backed by all the institutional power of a large, arrogant HMO. The Namies did not go looking for the phenomenon. As every target can testify, bullying came to them uninvited.

The horrific experience blended seamlessly with their backgrounds -- as management professor and organizational consultants coupled with professional mental health training and experience -- and they began helping others in the U.S. by starting in 1998 the Campaign Against Workplace Bullying and launching the early version of this website (bullybusters.org) from their home base in the San Francisco Bay Area. They established the only US bullying telephone crisisline (which is no longer possible), ultimately helping over 4,600 individuals. Media awareness began thanks to USA Today followed by nearly 600 print and broadcast appearances because the media turn to the Institute as the definitive North American source of information about the phenomenon. Their first jointly authored book was published in late1998.

Year 2000 was a landmark year. In 2000, the Namies' expanded and revised the book, The Bully At Work, published by Sourcebooks; the first U.S. conference was hosted by the Campaign in Oakland, CA; a second conference was hosted by Suffolk University Law School; Suffolk professor David Yamada's landmark legal treatise on workplace bullying was published in the Georgetown Law Journal.; Wayne State Univ. professor Loraleigh Keashly conducted the first U.S. bullying prevalence study; WBI's largest research investigation of bullying dynamics and target health was disseminated

In 2001, From 2001-2003, Dr. Gary (PhD, Social Psychology) returned part-time to the academewhich enriched the ongoing research program and led to his creation of the inaugural college course on workplace bullying in 2002.

In 2002, the Campaign became the Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI) to better reflect the research contribution we make to the international fight against workplace bullying.

The WBI is the sole North American nonprofit organization dedicated to the eradication of Workplace Bullying through education and research. An affiliated organization is the WBI-Legislative Campaign, created in 2007 to separate the lobbying work to generate state laws from the public charity work of its parent, WBI.