Meet Jeff
I am a child of the Civil Rights era. I still recall the thrill of attending a fundraiser at Jackie Robinson’s house, as a 13- year-old, listening to dignified and eloquent Civil Rights leaders speak about their hopes for the future – and, 3 years later, sitting with my feet in the Lincoln Memorial’s Reflecting Pool, on a blazingly hot summer afternoon, as Martin Luther King, Jr.’s melodic “I Have a Dream” washed over me.
From, Jeff’s Radical Decency: A Values-Based Approach to a Better Life and World
Photo by Harlow Poffenberger
A “big firm” attorney for 25 years, Jeff represented banks, investors, and business of all sizes. A business man since leaving the law in 2000, he has organized and led a multi-disciplinary healing center and, currently, the Decency Foundation; an organization dedicated to bringing Radical Decency to business.
Jeff’s experience as a community activist is equally rich and varied, including leadership in the fight against police brutality in Frank Rizzo’s Philadelphia, co-founding the National Constitution Center, and service trips to Haiti, Mexico, El Salvador, and Guatemala.
In his second career as a psychotherapist, he has also supported countless clients as they’ve struggled to find their way in a world that relentlessly pushes them to compete and win – and to remorselessly judge themselves when they fall short.
Drawing on this life time of work, study, and exploration, Jeff is uniquely able to speak with authority about the overriding issue of our time: How to create a better life and world when, year by year, the culture’s fiercely competitive, me-first values seem to reach, ever more deeply, into our lives.
Photo by Harlow Poffenberger