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My journey from a Yale PhD in Engineering and Science to Coaching
My biggest leap came when I transitioned from being a research scientist to a systems engineering manager at Bell Laboratories—in the days when there was a “Bell System.”
As a manager, I saw that one of the biggest barriers to success was teams not being able to work together effectively. That’s why I began studying with world-class experts to learn the art and science of coordinating action to achieve big goals. While studying, I was also successfully teaching others what I was learning.
With the Bell System break up in the mid-1980s, I found an opportune time to leave, form a company, and do my coaching work full time. I worked as a business coach even before the field of coaching was invented.
How did I become a coach?
In 1995, I enrolled in a formal coach training program to expand my coaching skills. It was offered by two experts I’d been working with, Julio Olalla and Rafael Echeverria. A year later, I was a certified coach and living out my own vision. My wife Nancy and I moved from central New Jersey to Jamestown, Colorado, an old gold mining town in the Colorado Rockies (population 287 today, but my neighbor is having a baby soon). Our grown children still live in NJ.
I continued coaching teams and individuals, giving them the benefit of my enhanced coaching skills and knowledge. I was using a system that I developed and refined over the years. And the more coaching I did, the more my own passion flowered.
I’m especially passionate about helping people shift their outlook from uncertainty—and even hopelessness—to ambition. I love helping people create and then fulfill a personal vision by moving past what limits them. My greatest satisfaction comes when my clients discover new options and start acting on them. I see their moods shift and they become “lighter.” Often, the shift comes from relatively small changes that dramatically improve their situation. It’s a joy to help people clarify where they’re going and why, while still being true to their core values.
Why did I start GoldNuggetCoaching.com?
Quite simply, the time was right. Web-based technology and telephone services have matured. It’s now possible to give people online access to powerful coaching programs that have the effectiveness of the face-to-face workshops and programs I’ve presented for years. Online, these programs are also affordable to a greater number of people.
Given where I live, the name GoldNuggetCoaching.com was a natural. More than that, I love the “gold nugget” name because it’s what I deliver (metaphorically speaking).
I work best with people who are open to learning by doing. Of course, there’s a “book learning” aspect to my programs where clients learn powerful distinctions. But the most valuable learning comes when they put concepts into action through a variety of engaging and revealing exercises that I provide. In the process, they are challenged and often inspired. I’ve repeatedly seen how new life skills emerge for people when they accept challenges and commit to moving through them.
My Mastering Your Future Online Workshop coaches people on how to create an incredible vision for their future—one that excites them and enables them to move into it with clarity and confidence.
My credentials and service to the community
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Newfield Certified Coach—Newfield’s coach training program is accredited by the International Coaching Federation (ICF). They are the premier ICF accredited coach training school in the world. Newfield’s perspective on coaching is what I subscribe to. That is, coaching is not only about increasing or improving your performance, it is also about shifting the way you see and interpret the world so that new actions become available to you.
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PhD, Engineering and Applied Science, Yale University
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Systems Engineering Manager, AT&T Bell Labs. Also while at AT&T for nine years, I worked in the following positions: “Intrapreneur,” managing the development and launching of new information products; and manager of campus recruiting of PhD physicists from New York University.
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Recipient of the Nguzo Saba Award—This award “for undying commitment to the African community” recognized me for creating a computer learning program in The New Ark School, located in the Central Ward of Newark, NJ.
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Appointed community representative to the Boulder County Lefthand Watershed Task Force. This group assessed environmental risks from historic gold mining and proposed options for cleanup.
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Appointed to the Colorado Energy Task Force by Senator Fitz-Gerald, President of the Colorado State Senate. This Task Force heard public testimony on the state’s future electricity needs, and made recommendations to the Governor and legislature on meeting those needs including strategies for promoting wind power and other alternative enrgy sources.
When I’m Not Working
When Nancy and I planned our move from New Jersey, she said, “Let’s live in a place where every day feels like vacation.”
That’s a perfect description for where we live in Jamestown, Colorado. When I’m not working “down in civilization” about 15 miles away, we enjoy the simple pleasures of hiking, visiting other mountain towns, playing with our dog Tootsie and parrot Sammy, and participating in community life.
One of my favorite pastimes is catching up with friends at the only store/café in town, the “Merc” (short for Mercantile Café, established in 1903). A lifelong amateur photographer, I love taking pictures of my surroundings. That’s a special time when I can nurture my creativity and see new possibilities in a variety of domains.
Some of my favorite quotes
Fortune Cookie, The Gold Lotus, Boulder, CO
January 21, 2006
is something to be enthusiastic about.
Charles Kingsley
Chalmers Brothers, Language and the Pursuit Of Happiness
Albert Einstein
and not everything that counts can be counted.
Albert Einstein
if the result is going to be twins.
Ancient Chinese Proverb
My love for Mark Twain’s wit and wisdom . . .
When literally begged by Alexander Graham Bell to buy stock in his new invention called the telephone, Twain said: “I declined . . . I didn’t want anything to do with wildcat speculation.”
