At this stage in my career, my primary focus remains rooted in infrastructure and the built environment, areas that have always captivated my interest. My academic background spans architecture, geography, and urban planning, providing a comprehensive understanding of large-scale, engineered systems. Despite this passion, I have persistently questioned the sustainability of the Western approach to the built environment and its disconnect from nature.

Influenced by pivotal works like the Club of Rome's "Limits to Growth," Hazel Henderson's "The Politics of the Solar Age," and Thomas Berry's profound insights, I have consistently sought to integrate innovation and systemic change to foster a more sustainable human presence on Earth.

Now, after retiring from a rewarding 20-year tenure in public service at the New York MTA, I am part of a global engineering, management, and development firm. This position offers me a unique platform to collaborate with major infrastructure providers across local, state, national, and international levels. My goal is to drive systemic change towards more sustainable and regenerative solutions in our built environment and the institutional systems required to sustain them. This work is aimed at ensuring the flourishing of both people and nature, synthesizing my lifelong interests and professional experience into a singular, impactful endeavor.

In the spirit of Joanna Macy's wisdom, I see my role as twofold: acting as both a hospice worker for the unsustainable, degenerative systems of old and a midwife for the emergence of a new, regenerative human presence on Earth. As I turned 60 last year, I embarked on a year-long vision quest to crystallize my contribution to this transformation. My journey includes participating in the Regenerative Practice program, which is the fourth course I've undertaken in this pursuit. Before this, I completed Fritjof Capra's course on a systems view of life, John Fullerton's program on Regenerative Economics, and Otto Scharmer's U-Lab on leading from the emerging future.

At personal, professional, and community levels, I recognize my role in facilitating the birth of a new, regenerative socio-technical urban infrastructure that aligns with bio-regional systems. Locally, I aim to assist my client base, which includes entities responsible for water, energy, and transportation infrastructures, in their transition towards more sustainable, resilient, and regenerative systems. Additionally, I'm keen on engaging with international experts to impact politics, policy, financing, standards, and regulatory frameworks. My goal is to expedite this transition and guide the necessary multi-trillion-dollar investments to re-engineer our built environment within the limits of our planet.

Taking this course marks the culmination of my year-long journey to evolve into a more effective systems thinker, change agent, and regenerative practitioner. I'm poised at a threshold moment, ready to integrate and apply these practices across all facets of my life and work, and to influence future generations positively. Within my current professional role, I aim to prototype and demonstrate these practices in my client engagements, showcasing their transformative potential and value for my company, the organizations I work with, and the communities they serve.

In the medium term, my goal is to expand these capabilities and capacities by collaborating with other individuals, firms, and institutions. This collaborative effort is crucial for implementing transformative work on a larger scale across a diverse range of public and private institutions. At the community level, my ambition is to forge connections with other leaders who have political and policy influence and share a similar vision. Together, we can expedite the shift toward a more sustainable and regenerative presence within the Earth community.

For my next phase of personal growth, I aim to deepen my spiritual strength to better manifest my contributions to the world. I believe my impact is directly related to my ability to connect with my inner purpose, coherence, and courage. Enhancing my personal practices, philosophical understanding, and connection to spiritual meaning is crucial for me to be a force for good in all my endeavors.

Additionally, I seek to learn how to engage more effectively within my community. I aspire to be a presence that empowers others to unlock their potential and lead impactful lives. Finally, a key area of growth is to strategically allocate my time and energy in this next life stage, given the magnitude of the current spiritual, social, and environmental crises. My goal is to balance my well-being with maximizing my social impact, navigating these challenging times with wisdom and effectiveness.

As I reflect on the breadth and depth of my professional journey, I recognize that my next phase of growth lies in mastering the art of wielding political, economic, and organizational power effectively. My career has spanned across architecture, engineering, construction, management, and economic development with various roles within state legislatures, chambers of commerce, city governments, significant public authorities, builders, and consultants. These experiences have given me valuable insights into the entities that genuinely shape our environment.

While I derive immense satisfaction from the physical aspect of building and collaborating with professionals in design, construction, operation, and maintenance, I've come to realize the critical importance of agenda-setting and resource allocation in these realms. The ability to influence decision-making at the political, economic, and organizational levels is where I can make a significant impact.

Hence, my next professional growth trajectory involves engaging more closely with policymakers, financial organizations, regulatory agencies, and executive teams of infrastructure companies. My goal is to contribute towards re-engineering the socio-political and economic frameworks that guide architects, engineers, planners, and builders. This strategic shift will allow me to exert a more profound and meaningful influence on the creation and transformation of our built environment.

Throughout my career, spanning over four decades, I have dedicated myself to understanding the intricate relationship between our built environment and the natural world. My journey in design, engineering, construction, and infrastructure management has been enriched by philosophical insights, particularly those imparted by Thomas Berry about the "Great Work," "Dream of the Earth," and humanity's role in a living universe.

As we navigate a pivotal transition from a degenerative to a regenerative presence on this planet, I find myself at an apex stage in both my life and career. I believe I have laid a solid foundation to act as a systems-change agent across local, regional, national, and international levels.

Looking forward, I recognize the importance of further investment into the realms of business, institutions, and networks. Such investments are crucial for scaling the impact I can have on the world, aligning with the urgent need for transformative change in how we interact with our environment. This next phase of my journey is about expanding influence and operational capacity, to make a lasting, positive difference in our collective future.

Throughout my life, a diverse array of influences and thinkers have shaped my perspective and approach. My early struggles with dyslexia taught me to perceive and interact with the world in unconventional ways. Despite challenges with the written and spoken word, I excelled in visualizing, drawing, and building almost anything. By the end of high school, I had already become a professional draftsman and carpenter. The summer before college, I worked on transforming a historic home along the Norwalk River into a modern office building, demonstrating my ability to conceive and construct things as part of a team in the real world.

My architecture studies were profoundly influenced by four semesters under the tutelage of Bill Katavalos, an industrial designer, futurist, and 'organicist' who promoted changes in the built environment through organic materials and engineering. My architectural research and design during that formative period focused on the potential for cybernetic materials, systems, and structures to be responsive to the natural environment. 40 years later, these radical architectural ideas are now becoming mainstream giving birth to entirely new fields such as biomimicry and cyber-physical systems with the 4th industrial revolution.

My involvement with the Earth community, a collaboration spearheaded by Dean James Morton and Thomas Berry at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, was transformative. There, not only did I absorb Thomas Berry's teachings and writings, but I was also exposed to other visionary thinkers such as John Todd of the New Alchemists, bioregionalism founder Patrick Sales, and Mary Evelyn Todd, who delved into the religious foundations of environmentalism.

These pioneering and disruptive thinkers have significantly influenced my personal and professional growth. For many years, integrating their ideas was challenging, but gradually, their concepts intertwined into a coherent framework. Now, this framework aligns with the principles of living systems advocated by Fritjof Capra, the social action research of Otto Scharmer, and the regenerative practices championed by Daniel Christian Wahl. These powerful strands have merged into a cohesive tapestry, guiding me as I envision the next stage of my life.

In my philosophy and cosmology, humans can have a significant role, which I liken to a parable I learned at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. There, I encountered the story of three stonecutters: one who saw his work as merely a job, another who took pride in his skill, and a third who envisioned his labor as part of a grander scheme, building a cathedral. This parable, along with my experience at St. John the Divine where I was working on John Todd’s Blueprints for the cathedral as a living machine, profoundly shaped my view of the human role in the universe.

My journey led me from the rigid structure of Catholicism to the poetic fluidity of Taoism. Over decades, I've delved into diverse philosophies, from the ancient texts of Judaism, Greece, and Rome, to Eastern teachings like Taoism, Confucianism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, and modern thinkers including Krishnamurti, Bohm, Budos, and Bateson. My philosophy aligns closely with the way of a bodhisattva, striving to embody principles such as clarity, perseverance, and wisdom in service of other sentient beings as best as I can.

Currently, I'm drawn to the work of futurist and cosmologist Jude Caravan. She skillfully bridges complex scientific concepts like quantum mechanics and astrophysics with a metaphysical perspective, advocating for a paradigm shift that reconciles our internal and external experiences, infusing them with meaning and purpose.

To encapsulate my view, I defer to a quote from Thomas Berry: “In reality, there is a single integral community of the Earth that includes all its component members whether human or other than human. In this community, every being has its own role to fulfill, its own dignity, its own inner spontaneity. Every being has its own voice. Every being declares itself to the entire universe. Every being enters into communion with other beings. In every phase of our imaginative, aesthetic, and emotional lives we are profoundly dependent on this larger context of the surrounding world.” This perspective underlines my belief in the interconnectedness and unique contribution of every entity in the cosmic tapestry.