I’m very grateful to have been asked to serve on the Coordinating Committee. I first learned about Third Act NH a year and a half ago and immediately signed on. Like others, I’ve been inspired by Bill McKibben and felt the idea behind Third Act was brilliant.
Activism has been a through-line for me having taken my first big step as a college student joining the freedom riders in Selma. This was followed by work in the peace movement with the Berrigan Brothers and finally serving as a conscientious objector at NH State Hospital. I gravitated into the environmental movement in the 70’s often focused on water issues. Participating in political advocacy naturally accompanied activism; I served as a regional coordinator with MoveOn and later with Democrats Abroad in Mexico where I lived for 12 years.
For fourteen years I served as a therapist and a social service administrator after earning degrees in Social Work and Public Health. Mid-career I switched directions, founded a rowing organization, and became the head of the Three Rivers Rowing Association in Pittsburgh, PA.
I recently completed Hopeful Pessimism by Mara Van Der Lugt and agree with her central theme that it may be unlikely that we’ll experience meaningful improvements in the climate crisis in our lives, but that nevertheless we will apply our greatest effort because we believe it is the right thing to do.
Like many others, I’m very discouraged about how terribly polarized our society has become along with disinformation and sensational claims of epic proportions. So one thing I hope to be able to do is help Third Act NH to involve climate skeptics … perhaps through my other involvements including work with Braver Angels.
I am very happy to be back in my native state at this point in my life and enjoy an active lifestyle including hiking, biking, skiing, rowing, and paddling mostly here in the Monadnock Region. I’m an active member of the Peterborough UU Congregation. My wife and I blended our families and have our adult children and four grandchildren.