Professional Experience:
I have guided over 320 groups, including government and private sector organizations, to identify their most important needs, generate options, manage conflict, negotiate, reach agreements and set action plans to achieve higher function.
I have served consistently over the last 33 years as an impartial facilitator and coach in state government and for private sector firms, and on key governmental rosters of specialized intervenors to enable participants in all kinds of conflict to create the best possible outcomes.
I was lucky to be mentored as an impartial third-party mediator by Alice Shorett who is recognized as a key ‘pioneer’ in the field of public conflict resolution since its notable beginning in the US in 1979 (when a group of practitioners including Alice, along with Gerald McCormick and Jane McCarthy decided to “try using labor negotiation” strategies for an environmental conflict over Snohomish River flood control in Washington).
My capacity in this field now hinges on my courage and ease about the work, my commitment to either a coach code of ethics or third-party code of ethics, and lots of practice directly supporting the best possible paths of more skillfulness with conflict and opportunities of all kinds. I see the theory and practice of conflict skills as central to adult development, as are communities of practice.
Overall, my experience in this field has made me willing and able to take deliberate risks on behalf of the processes and outcomes participants and communities need, all the while growing my own awareness, choices, and practices as a reflective practitioner.
It may sound too simple, but the longer I’ve been guiding some pieces and parts of stuck or particularly conflictual governmental team conflict and other public conflict (e.g., In the U.S. these include Endangered Species Act implementation, Clean Water and Clean Air Act conflicts, nuclear waste management and Superfund cleanup agreements, National Park conflicts, Tribal-Federal-State conflicts and so on) the more I believe the “ground” is all of us learning and practicing self-regulation and conflict skills -- re-wiring our neurons and our habitual responses and choices by pausing, breathing, choosing what we say, what we do, and how we deliberately respond.
People need to discover together how they can best move a situation forward toward the best possible outcomes.