What I'm all about

My work has much to do with making connections - people to people, and people to ideas. But that begs the question of context: what kinds of people, what fields of ideas, and how do I go about my work?

While the distinction isn't always clear, my work breaks down into two fundamental categories:

• I serve as a coach to businesses wishing to develop or advance their strategies for technology-based learning, performance support, or corporate learning in general. Major consulting clients include Lockheed Martin, HJ Heinz, MetLife, Bank of Montreal, Amoco, WW Grainger, Western Union, Cox Communications, and Kellogg. Perhaps the best way to learn the value I offer is to invite me in to perform a strategic Opportunity Assessment. These require only a few days and provide valuable external insight on your current state and how you might realize additional benefits from learning technologies or performance support initiatives. At the very least, I might confirm that you're on the right track!
  
  
• I also create and manage consortia for companies wishing to share non-proprietary best practices and the costs of joint research efforts. Consortium clients include Agilent Technologies, American Express, AT&T, Bank of Montreal, Best Buy, Boeing, Daimler-Chrysler, Federated Department Stores, Fleet Bank, Ford, Freddie Mac, HJ Heinz, Kellogg, JP Morgan, General Motors, WW Grainger, Hewlett Packard, Johnson & Johnson, Lockheed Martin, Lucent, MasterCard, MetLife, Motorola, Netscape, Nextlink, Rubbermaid, Charles Schwab, Sempra Energy, Sun Microsystems, USAA, Western Union, Xerox, and XO Communications. If you follow the "STEP" link at the left, you'll learn more about how these consortia function and benefit their members.

Background:

Before forming my own firm, I headed the learning technologies function of Aetna, Inc. My staff and I supported all learning technologies initiatives across Aetna. My career in corporate education began when I joined Aetna's Computer Based Education Unit in 1983. Founded in 1975 by Gloria Gery, that unit was the genesis for what grew to become the Learning Technologies Unit, which I led for over 11 years. Throughout this period, I fostered an atmosphere of performance-focused creativity and innovation which won the Unit an international reputation. As my former staff still frequently tell me, we had a very special playground in which to mature our understanding of technology-based learning; what works, what doesn't, and why.

Fleshing out the resume...

I have been a speaker before ADCIS, the CBT Conference, the EPSS Conferences, AT&T's Training Managers' Conference, conferences sponsored by the International Quality and Productivity Center (IQPC), Institute for International Research (IIR), and International Communications for Management (ICM), and graduate programs in instructional design at Penn State, Syracuse, Columbia, and the University of Connecticut. I've taught a graduate course in "Technology-based Learning in the Workplace" for Columbia University. For over ten years, I have been an advisor to Bloomsburg University's graduate program in interactive instructional technologies.

I have published articles in Training magazine, ISPI's Performance Improvement, Human Resources Executive, and CBT Directions; and have received major coverage for my work in Human Resource Executive, The Learning Enterprise, Technology for Learning, Training, Personnel Journal, Inside Technology Training, and Enterprise. Many of these articles are available on-line: follow the link to Articles.

For four years, I served as coordinator of the annual Performance-Centered Design competition, sponsored by Bill Communications (publisher of Training magazine).

Aside from work, I pursue interests in evolutionary biology, family history research, and nature photography. Weather permitting, I drive a '59 Triumph TR3. Once upon a time, I was a Captain in the US Army.