My Background

I’m so tired of writing bios in pretend third person. You know it’s me talking about me, so let’s be transparent.

My undergraduate days were spent doing just about anything you can do on a college campus except hit the library. That for me was the ultimate sedative. Still, I managed to earn two degrees, in economics and philosophy, and almost a master’s in communications. (I got my first job in journalism just before I finished it.)

I was an Emmy winning reporter and anchor in television news for 19 years, covering everything from California forest fires to national political conventions and arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court. My roles included serving as Business Editor and Capital Correspondent. I covered education, healthcare, the courts, missing children, natural disasters and just about any topic or event you can think of. The constant variety and challenges make journalism a good fit for someone with adult ADD.

I loved working in news. Daily stimulation is helpful when you’re mildly narcoleptic. Journalism taught me how to quickly learn virtually anything well enough to explain it to others. It’s important work. But I left it, looking for ways to impact the world as an actor rather than observer, and to pursue an earlier passion from my college days. One I couldn’t fully define early on, but that eventually evolved into Innovator Mindset. I’ve developed broad and deep expertise into what makes people innovative—or not. Despite my early aversion to academics, I’ve published multiple peer-reviewed articles on innovativeness in scientific journals, based on my research, which continues.

My work is a bit “meta.” The impact I want to have is in guiding others to enhance their positive impact. My mission is to strengthen your ability to create, adapt, be resourceful, make astute observations, think critically, gain insights, and make discoveries—to thrive, drive change, and create value in this rapidly changing world.

I co-developed a rigorous self-assessment for measuring and developing personal innovativeness. I’ve also developed a self-paced elearning program called Mindset Trek. The Innovator Mindset Assessment, Mindset Trek eLearning, and other instructional materials have been adopted at dozens of colleges and universities to teach innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership to students in more than 30 majors. I’ll be making these resources available to subscribers.

These materials have been used to train researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, to develop innovativeness in engineers and other STEM students, and by business startup incubators and accelerators. I’ve also helped develop innovativeness in bioengineering students under a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation.

I’m an award-winning author of two books, with another one on the way. Much of that previous and upcoming content will appear here. Please join me on a shared quest to make the world better.