My Background and Work

As a life-long learner and educator, it gives me great pleasure to bring my work to staff, students and parents in educational settings throughout the world. My background includes over forty years experience as high school teacher, counselor, First Offender Program facilitator, adolescent and family drug-treatment program director, university instructor, and professional development specialist. This includes four years as a member of the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Studies Institute faculty at the University of New Mexico, while simultaneously serving as program director at St. Vincent Hospital Family Recovery Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. From 1986 until 2006 I taught graduate and undergraduate courses for the Division of Extended Studies, Adams State College, Alamosa, Colorado, on topics ranging from stress management and wellbeing, resiliency in children, to the amazing brain, and facilitation skills for group counseling. 

Over the years, I’ve had the good fortune to provide conference keynote addresses and professional development workshops to over three thousand schools, businesses, agencies, and organizations throughout North and South America, and in numerous other countries throughout Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

Along the way I’ve authored three books: Anatomy of a Crisis: The Effects of Alcohol and Other Drugs on the Brain; Our Children, Our Future; and From Risk to Resiliency, as well as several resource manuals and curricula. To round things out, I’ve been a practicing artist most of my life, having most recently provided the illustrations for the book, WorldWords, by Victor La Cerva, M.D. I hold a black-belt in Aikido, a modern Japanese martial art devoted to neutralizing aggression and redirecting conflict. Finally, I’m proud to say I have three talented, creative daughters, and five wonderful grandchildren. My wife, Linda, and I make our home in beautiful Santa Fe, New Mexico USA.