John is a student of community life and public leadership. He does research, writes, speaks and advises public leaders on strategies to activate citizens to take action.

John's professional journey includes twenty years work with public-oriented organizations including the U.S. Bureau of Primary Health Care, American Society of Newspaper Editors, Kettering and C.S. Mott Foundations, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Demos Public Works Project and many Pulitzer prize-winning newspapers.  John is the former director and senior fellow with The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation.  As founder of Conocer, John designed a peer-to-peer learning network for forty-plus primary health care associations around the country.  He began his career working on the staff of two Kansas gubernatorial campaigns.

John is author or more than forty reports and articles. He has been a keynote speaker for groups ranging from the Western Governors Association, Nature Conservancy, National Association of Secretaries of State, Mid America Press Institute, Greater Midwest Association of Primary Health Care Centers, and the Poynter Institute for Media Studies.

One of John's joys is the opportunity to interview Americans from all walks of life.  He has had the privilege to sit down with such diverse groups - in such diverse places - as executives in the World Trade Center; community health care workers in South Carolina; AME church members in Atlanta; ranchers in North and South Dakota; union members in Flint, MI; casino workers in Las Vegas; newspaper reporters in Baltimore; media pioneers in California, and countless others in 42 states.

John grew up in a small town on the Great Plains where he learned community is not a concept but a rewarding, and practical, way of life.  John is a graduate of the University of Kansas and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.  He and his wife Joni are raising three children in Longmont, Colorado where John serves on the school board.

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