I learned the infrastructure of my career from Ms. Mary Bouchard. (Mizz. Bouchard.)
She was my English teacher at G. Ray Bodley High School in Fulton, New York, three years in a row — tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade. (Poor woman.) She was one of the great teachers of my life. Most of my ability to write a compelling and powerful story, I learned in her classroom.
Her ethos has been my north star for forty years:
Let the writing steep overnight. Then come back to it with a clean set of eyes. Read it as the writer. Read it as the reader. Then read it again as each character inside the book.
By listening and interpreting story from multiple vantage points — the person who lived it, the person who will hear it, and the person inside it — Ms. Bouchard taught her students creative writing. Three different angles each speaking their own truth, but woven together, these truths create a seamless story. Ms. Bouchard instilled a brilliance in how to make a story riveting, so one would be captivated by every perspective.
Whether helping organizations whose narrative had drifted, writing press releases, or at the deathbed of a friend, I have been fortunate to have her lessons as guideposts throughout my career. I now use her map for empowering queer elders who have carried their own story for years. This space is an opportunity to finally share their journey and to celebrate their life.
Most recently, her template is the vessel to launch the story of a Hollywood figure, whose name has been invisible for fifty years. Despite having shaped some of the most iconic images in international popular culture, his name has been largely hidden. His global contributions will now be a lasting legacy.
I inherited the listening, creative expression, and community building from three generations of my Family, who had these talents without yet naming them — my grandparents built gathering places that fostered storytelling, my father was a storyteller as an Episcopal priest, and my mother was a teacher.
Ms. Bouchard did not call it story preservation — I recently coined that term. But the practice she entrusted to me when I was a teenager is the toolkit from which I craft story. The writing — the part where you take what you have heard and put it into a form someone else can carry — that was a gift from Ms. Bouchard. Thank You.
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Acadia Healthcare / Desert CTC - Working as a community strategist in addiction and recovery services, I built coalitions from the ground up — the multi-county Opioid Steering Committee, aligning 15+ organizations around real-time data to minimize overdose deaths; the Homeless Workgroup Solutions Task Force, bringing together the Palm Springs Police Department, city staff, and local agencies to improve care and communication; harm reduction outreach partnership with Desert AIDS Project (DAP). I also initiated what may become a first-of-its-kind FQHC/MAT partnership, currently in development. This work is supported by $1.5M in federal grants I oversee.
Pride Institute - As Director of Community Relations, I led national engagement strategy for the country's premier LGBTQ+ addiction treatment facility. I revitalized the organization's community reputation through authentic partnerships, delivered keynote presentations on LGBTQ+ health equity at national conferences, and developed programming that created spaces where LGBTQ+ people could be fully themselves — and get well.
Entrepreneur & Business Owner - For over two decades I conceived, funded, and operated multiple small businesses — a medical consulting practice, an automotive dealership, a coffee house, and a commercial loft property. These experiences taught me that every organization, regardless of size or sector, can become a thriving community hub.
Screen Actors Guild — SAG-AFTRA -As Assistant Director of Membership, I led a team inducting new members into one of America's largest labor unions — 160,000+ performers. The challenge wasn't just administrative — it was creating an onboarding experience where a day player and an Oscar winner each felt celebrated, welcomed, and represented.
Peggy Lee - I served as assistant and ghost writer for one of Hollywood's most iconic entertainers. That experience — navigating the intersection of artistry, ego, legacy, and the preservation of a singular voice — taught me more about organizational culture than any Ivy League business school. There were chandeliers in every room. I was not going to end up like William Holden in Sunset Boulevard.
Episcopal Church USA - Through the national Peace & Justice office, I crafted press releases and call to action alerts to ignite social justice campaigns for the 2.5 million members across 110 dioceses, each with vastly different theological and political orientations. I managed a $500M socially responsible investment portfolio through the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, authoring shareholder resolutions that shaped Fortune 500 company practices — pioneering early ESG work before the term existed.
Thornfield Conference on Sexuality - In the early 1990s, I served as assistant to directors Allison Deming and Brian McNaught for this week-long Sexual Attitude Reassessment (SAR) program — pioneering work on sexuality and spirituality before these conversations entered the mainstream. Working alongside my first trans colleague fundamentally changed how I understood the arc of human sexuality. I was also charged with managing VIP attendees, including foreign dignitaries.
Faith Communities - As Music Director across Catholic, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Mormon, Christian Science, and Jewish congregations over many years, I learned how belief systems shape diverse approaches to life — and how music connects everyone.
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BA, Communication & Music Performance, DePauw University
Certified Spiritual Life Coach, Life Purpose Institute
The Hoffman Institute Graduate