Two years ago,Peggy Gunza of Waddell & Reed, had a problem with an employee who was too handsome for his own good.

"He was a very good-looking 28 year old, and he was having a hard time getting people to take him seriously" said Gunza, who is district manager at the Torrance financial services firm. "He was smart enough. He knew the stuff. But his looks were very striking, and he had a very humble, boy-next-door look."

Gunza turned to a solution that was beyond words. She called body language specialist Whitey Brewer of Hermosa Beach.

Brewer spent a few sessions observing, videotaping and advising Gunza's employee on how to appear more mature.

"He has little kid habits that needed to be fine-tuned so he could be taken a little more seriously" Gunza said. "The young guy plops down and puts his arms up and talks on the cell phone. And he looks real cool, but he looks kind of childish."

Brewer helped the man develop what he calls an empowered persona, behavior traits that made him appear older. For example, Brewer helped him improve his phone manner by having him sit up straight and physically carry himself more formally on the phone.

"If he slouched or sat too casually, that often translated into how he spoke on the phone," Brewer said. "There is very much of a coupling between your body language and your voice."

Gunza said her employee wasn't aware of many of the behavior traits that made him seem childish. But Brewer's sessions helped.

The employee eventually left Waddell & Reed, and went to a "very successful" career in sales, Gunza said.

"I would attribute a lot of his success to his experience he had here," she said of Brewer's sessions.

Brewer started taking workshops in body linguistics about 14 years ago. A year later, he had learned enough to help run the workshops.

In the fall of 1999, Brewer, 59(now), quit his job as a systems engineer at Hughes Space & Communications in El Segundo so he could pursue his body linguistics work full time. He had already begun taking classes at the University of Santa Monica in 1988, and earned a master's degree in spiritual psychology.

Last fall, Mel Mendelson, a professor of mechanical engineering at Loyola Marymount University, hired Brewer as a consultant in his product development class. Brewer helped students overcome conflicts within teams trying to develop product ideas and marketing strategies.

"I wanted to know if they are running into obstacles along the way and what's the cause of the obstacles. For example, being able to spot conflicts before the real conflicts develop," Mendelson said of his students. "The major assumption is that the body language will not lie."

Mendelson had organized some of the teams into diverse groups in terms of education, ethnicity and gender. But with that diversity came increased disagreement and conflict, he said. If the conflicts can be limited through better communication, the diverse groups are more effective with regard to creativity, collaboration and productivity compared to the uniform groups, Mendelson said.

Brewer's work included observing the eye blink rate of the students to gauge aggressiveness.

Brewer says he can help a person improve communication and confidence, and even lose weight. For example, if a client comes to Brewer wanting to lose 10 pounds a week, Brewer will observe the individual.

If that weight loss goal is too aggressive, the client may have a high eye blink rate when talking about her goal, Brewer said.

"Their body shuts down if they have a goal that is too aggressive," he said. "The Body says, 'This is too much. I'm not going to do it.' So I suggest maybe they should lower their goal."

If the goal is not aggressive enough, the body language may appear aggressive because the client becomes impatient. Such body language could include an angry expression, jerky motions and tight facial muscles, he said.

Mendelson stressed that Brewer's techniques are not widely accepted in mainstream academia.

"Not everybody agrees with the way he does things or his whole concept, particularly in an academic setting," Mendelson said. "(Nonverbal communication is) very much interpretive, and not always easy to measure."

Brewer acknowledges the skepticism. "Some people are just not ready to hear it," Brewer said. "But in general, we're seeing much more acceptance."

Brewer's Web site is www.drwhiteybrewer.com.

Muhammed El-Hasan, Dailey Breeze