About the Work, and about Historical Geography.

My work was borne of an understanding of the connectedness of the world. I don't try to change the world; I focus on local matters as expressions of broader and deeper dynamics in time and in space.

  • A narrow-gauge railroad in one mountain community is a small part of a network of transportation services needed for the settlement of a large and complex ecosystem and geography.
  • With the arrival of electricity, telephone, internet connectivity networks, communities and the lives of their residents were irreversably altered.
  • The settlement of a community is an end result of national and international economic events far beyond the vision and understanding of the people who build their homes and businesses and start their families.

Full of complexity and mystery, the broad sweep of time reveals patterns of birth, growth, and transition in the life of our communities, our organizations, and in our own personal family histories.

 

With a nod to the dynamics of non-profit management, I formalize these interests in a Statement of Mission. to explore these realms, document them at this particular moment in time, and share them with today's generations.

A Bit of Biography.

Working as an independent scholar since the early 1970s, I've been a consultant to and staff member of a wide variety of organizations, communities, and governmental bodies. In my early career I served as the clinical director of a community mental health center and an elected member of a Board of Education.

 

For several years I worked in the corporate world doing everything from manual labor to customer ssrvice, before returning to non-profit work in the planning department of a metropolitan government.

 

Along the way I've supported the development of an annual community festival with 200,000 attendees, and participated in the formation of an internationally known film festival, while serving on the boards of directors of a score of non-profit organizations.

 

My work at this stage of my life is the culmination of decades of focus on understanding, cultivating, and enhancing Community, in all of its richness and all of its meanings.

 

A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, for twenty years I lived, worked, and studied in service to families and communities from a private office in the heartland of the United States. Since 1992 I've made my home in the high country of Colorado. My PhD was granted by the University of Utah in 1974. Working in community has taken me far afield from my original work in social and clinical psychology, though is a natural extension of my original research in social applications of general systems theory.

Though my choice to live in a remote mountain location precludes active engagement in a local club, I continue to value the ethics and practices of Rotary International. The Four-way test never fails.

 

Married more than 50 years, I remain committed to nurturing and supporting the radical generosity of a progressive community-based church. I count as among my greatest satisfactions my continuing friendships with the two younger generations in my family.

Professional and Personal Advisors

 

By its very nature the field of geography is wide-ranging discipline, and specializing in historical applications serves to widen that perspective even further. Through the years I've counted among my mentors and teachers scores of wise and learned resources: librarians, geographers, city planners, engineers, lawyers, historical preservation specialists, historians, industrial archeologists, earth scientists, statisticians, and sociologists. I'm drawn to people who can enlarge my world.

 

Defying the tendency toward either/or thnking in worlds of knowledge, I've come to equally value the practices of the sciences and the power of the arts. In full measure they can connect us and to tap into universal truths, their revelation of archetypes. 

 

Through it all, and as a base, I've been nourished by the understanding that there are truths far beyond our ability to yet grasp them. We are all together a part of something much larger than ourselves. The life of Spirit supports us.

PO Box N

Fort Collins CO 80522 USA

501(c)(3) DLN 26053699001115

The Four Way Test

of

Rotary International

ONE. Is it the truth?

TWO. Is it fair to all concerned?

THREE. Will it build goodwill and better friendships?

FOUR. Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

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