My formal, professional "training" is in Organizational Behavior and Staff Development. I love to talk about leadership its effect on positive culture. I take great pride in getting people to buy into values and norms like initiative, integrity, task ownership, pride, commitment - all culminating in an environment where people look forward to coming to work with the full knowledge that they are appreciated. My core belief is that a happy person is a productive employee.
Most people have enough life stress to occupy their worry time. I have deep convictions that it is my responsibility to provide the tools and skills that engender competence. This competence must be greeted by cheerful accountability and coaching. My core belief is that people are not innately lazy, but do develop poor work habits based upon lack of structure. At the end of the day, people produce - and the results speak for themselves, or not. It is my job to assess deficiencies and coach people to close the gap.
A problem arises when the organization you work for does not subscribe to the same philosophy and works from a different set of assumptions about people; and how to optimize performance and productivity. I have written about this in other places and will not attend to this subject here.
My point in mentioning this, however, is that I am much better off "being my own boss" due to my tendency to rail against regressive and oppressive tactics of my employer with employees I serve.
Therefore, it is very much my choice to work with "ordinary folk" who need a leg up. Who simply need to see a glimmer of hope in something viable. People who have the ability to learn and apply new things, then teach these same things to others and perpetuate a growing, vital culture that takes on a life of its own -based upon the simple notion of interdependence, support, and greater financial stability.
PERSONALLY
I grew up in Lewistown, PA. I had a lot of good friends who gathered at my house. I had a great playground-quality basketball hoop in my backyard and there were kids around, constantly.
In high school, I was an average student and an average athlete. Although I won MVP awards and first-team all-star selections, in retrospect it was more a function of being a big fish in a small pond. My freshman year of college I attended Pitt and met a guy who had been a lifeguard in Ocean City, NJ that summer. The following summer, I went to OCNJ and made the Beach Patrol.
This lifestyle was somewhat addicting. I got paid to work out and even though through my early years I was a "rock" in the water, I had the frame to be a decent rower. That gig lasted for fourteen years as I remained a student to support my lifeguard habit.
My education, after having withdrawn from Pitt for partying too hard and living in a fraternity, went through West Virginia University where I got involved in residence life and intramural officiating. I graduated with honors (Magna Cum Laude), but again... I was not an engineering student.
After taking three years off from school, having been the recipient of a couple of family windfalls, I bought a van and traveled around the county, purchased a couple of brand new motorcycles and was basically fatalistic in my worldview, thinking it was going to hell in a handbasket. I was very much the happy hedonist.
In 1981, I began a Master's program in Counseling at Michigan State. That lasted for one semester and I switched to University Administration and this is where I learned about leadership and organizational development. My first job out of grad school was at the University of New Hampshire, followed by a short stint at Harrah's Marina Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, and then Brown University as the Residence Halls Facility Manager. This lasted until 1990 at which time I married my current wife, Joan and we started a family of three sons.
After leaving Brown, I worked in cell phones during the cell phone boom and then went back and forth between sales contracting and home improvement contracting, right up to the present. Most recently, I worked for a couple of years for a national custodial management company. We did a great job, but as a Manager, I was way too direct and honest for my client and I eventually asked to be removed from the account due to untenable politics and before I took a (metaphorical) flamethrower to the place.
Since then, I worked at a small college in RI managing the custodial department. I now am semi-retired and work in a menial retail job to pay the bills, as I help people develop the skills and mindset to be successful in home business.
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