I was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario for the first 18 years of my life, with the exception of three years I spent as a child in the UK living in Hertfordshire.
From 1986-1991 I attended Trent University where I took a degree in Native Studies, and completed an honours thesis in Native Management and Economic Development. The thesis looked at the development of organizational culture in two national Indigenous organizations. I worked as a Researcher in the Native Management and Economic Development Program from 1988-1991, writing case studies and contributing to curriculum material. in 1990 I co-taught the Native Studies 90 course, which was an academic pre-session for adult students preparing to enter Native Studies.
After graduating I moved to Ottawa and worked from 1991-1994 as a Policy Analyst for the National Association of Friendship Centres where I participated in a number of national projects including Constitutional discussions around the Charlottetown Accord, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and the development of several national programs including Aboriginal Head Start and a national Aboriginal Family Violence Initiative. It was during this time that I developed a professional interest in facilitation and participatory policy development.
ALong with my partner Caitlin Frost, we moved to Vancouver in 1994 where I continued working for the Friendship Centre movement as Senior Policy Advisor with the BC Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres. In 1995, I attended a conference of the International Association of Public Participation Practitioners (IAP3) and discovered Open Sapce Technology for the first time. That changed my facilitation practice radically.
in 1996 I began working as a Public Education and Consultation advisor for the Federal Treaty Negotiation Office, managing the regional advisory committee process along with provincial government and First Nations government counterparts in the BC Treaty Process.
I left that job in 1999 and started my own consulting business specializing in large group process facilitation, including Open Space Technology and began offering trainings in these facilitation methods as well. My work in that time included a number of Indigenous organizations, non-profits and governments. In 2001 our family moved to Bowen Island BC where we currently reside. In 2004 I became active in the Art of Hosting global community and began teaching Art of Hosting workshops in 2005, first in Canada and later across the US, Europe and South Africa. I contributed resources, stories and thinking to the Open Space Technology world during this time, including writing a book called The Tao of Holding Space.
In 2007 my partner Caitlin Frost and I officially incorporated our business Harvest Moon Consulting. Caitlin specializes in coaching and supporting senior leadership in the projects that we run together. During this time we were also raising our two children, running a community based home learning support program and training in the martial arts.
Starting in 2009 I began to incorporate a deeper view of complexity into my work and became active in contributing to the world of dialogic organizational development, anthro-complexity and the Art of Hosting. My work on Dialogic Containers was published in Dialogic Organizational Development and in the OD Practitioner Journal.
Our client work has evolved to become focused on large group facilitation, leadership development and long term culture change in organizations and sectors. We co-lead the Leadership 2020 Program for ten years for the Federation of Community Social Services in BC which was a leadership development program that trained over 400 human services leaders in BC. We have run similar programs for Community Living BC, the University of Nother Texas, the Univerity of Texas Arlington, the Vancouver Foundation, the Wyss Academy for Nature and the Circle on Philantrhopy with Aboriginal People in Canada among other clients.
I teach extensively in the areas of complexity, facilitation and participatory leadership.
Outside of my professional life, i am a singer with a Rennasance chorale called Carmina Bowena, and sing tenor in three other choirs and ensebles singing liturgical music, madrigals, traditional music and jazz. I play guitar, Irish flutes and whistles and have recorded and performed on both. Since 2019 I have been studying jazz guitar with teachers.
Since 2017 I have been actively involved with TSS Rovers, a League 1 BC semi-professional soccer club. Our women’s team plays in the top flight of women’s soccer at the moment in Canada and our men’s team plays in the thrid tier of Canadian soccer. We are focused on community building and advancing players, coaches, technical staff and other to the highest level of the game. In 2022 we became the first club in Canada with significant community ownership, selling over 400 shares to community members. I am a founder and current Board member of the Supporters’ Trust.