I retired early, 58 years old, in 2007, after thirty-five years as a leader and consultant in various domestic and international industries. Leadership was the path I was destined to follow, starting with being an officer in the Army's Special Forces. As I entered college, I looked long and hard at a curriculum I felt would be universal wherever I found myself.

After leaving the military and graduating from college, my career path had a definite focus: helping people. I have been blessed with some great leaders, especially in business. Straight out of college, I worked with Ross Perot of Electronic Data Systems (EDS). Ross was a straightforward leader with a lot of compassion for his people. Following EDS, I was blessed with exposure to Bill Marriott Sr. while working for the Marriott Corporation. Both these men were extraordinary leaders and were approachable and loved mentoring leaders.  Through these two leaders, I recognized the importance of mentoring to help develop leaders. Corporations gave me the depth and breadth I needed to learn more while experiencing real-life leadership experience. The real-life experience proved helpful as I created my own one-person consulting business. 

As a consultant, I handled small contracts for individuals and small businesses and contracted out to more giant billion-dollar international corporations. I learned early in my consulting profession to partner with other consultants. During my consulting, I grew my knowledge of organizational effectiveness and corporate culture and developed an even deeper understanding of leadership and the role of leadership in organizations. I raised my knowledge by securing my Master's in Organizational Communication, built on my Bachelor's degree in interpersonal communication I attained after leaving the military. I pursued a doctorate, but halfway through the program became too busy with consulting and my family to complete the program.  

When I retired, I handled smaller consulting projects. One was with the FBI working with them to establish a new State Homeland Security strategy. I became interested in the law enforcement model during this time, and after leaving that short project, I pursued research into the law enforcement model. This research led me to create a new paradigm for average citizens to protect themselves from violent crime, which I realized was increasing. Eventually, this led me to write two books on personal protection Create A Bad Guy Free Zone and Creating a Bad Guy FreeZone While Traveling. From the many years of research in this field, I evolved a webinar I conduct currently called Avoiding Violence - Evading Fear.  

As of this writing, my current research shows that leadership in America is declining, https://www.ddiworld.com/global-leadership-forecast-2023.  something you don't need to research to notice. During my review of declining leadership, it became clear that the most significant issues were no different than when I began my leadership career over forty years ago. Over the last few years, I have determined that the primary cause of poor leadership today is the need for more trust and the inability to communicate interpersonally. You must build trust with communication. Looking closer at communication, it is clear that we must spend more time educating people about communicating effectively. There are no courses in K-12 on how to communicate effectively, just grammar courses. Grammar is vital to communication, but it is only a tiny part of what is needed to communicate effectively. Research has led me to my current pursuit in my retirement. To encourage mandating communication within all levels of our educational systems. My other quest is to become more available to leaders and individuals as a mentor. The best way to scale this project quickly is through webinars and conducting sessions via video conferencing over systems like ZOOM and other video conferencing tools.