Burt Woolf

I've spent my entire professional life exploring how people, organizations and communities create a context of quality of life in their world.

Early Academics and Career. Following my eduation at Amherst College (BA; Political Science), Harvard (Certificate in Arts Administration); and the University of California at Los Angeles (MS; Management in the Arts), I embarked on what turned out to be quite a successful national career in the emerging field of "Local Cultural Planning and Development." During the 1970's and into the 1980's, I held a series of senior and chief executive positions leading to 4 years as Director of the CITY SPIRIT program at the National Endowment for the Arts, and culminating with 5 years as Executive Director of the Massachusetts Cultural Alliance. By the time I was 33 years old, my professional future in the arts looked bright and secure.

Unanticipated career re-direction. In 1981, my life took a dramatic turn with the sudden illness and death of my first wife, just days after giving birth to our first child. As my grieving process evolved over the next 25 years, my career path as an institutional executive shifted to a diverse portfolio of professional activities -- entrepreneurial ventures, consulting assignments and personal projects -- all focusing on how individuals, organizations, and communities can generate high performance results and find fulfillment by improving quality-of-life in the world.

Back in the executive saddle. From 2001-2003, I returned to the CEO life as Executive Director of the Creative Education Foundation, an international nonprofit best known for its annual Creative Problem Solving Institute and its peer-reviewed academic publication, The Journal of Creative Behavior.   During my two years at CEF, I came to see my own life as a creative process; to recognize that my own journey had taken many unexpected twists and turns; and to notice that each time things have seemed daunting, limiting and constrained for me, I've somehow found the inner resources to get back up and seek new ways to express myself.  

Another academic credential. In 2004, I made the life-changing decision to set my professional career aside in order to pursue a doctorate in education at the University of Massachusetts, whose flagship campus in Amherst was located about a mile from my home at the time. For the next seven years, I was a full time student, interspersing occasional professional assignments with doctoral course work, research, graduate assistantships, and dissertation writing. I earned my doctorate (Ed.D.) in early 2011 with a focus on Transformative Learning and Leadership within the Educational Policy, Research and Administration concentration.

Scholarship and personal transformation. My 6+ years of academic research focused on an aspect of adult development called "transformative learning:" the process by which we are able to adapt to dramatically changing circumstances in the world around us. For several years, I studied the personal experience of five people who had shifted their work and careers from the business world to the nonprofit service sector. In my dissertation (What's So Different About Making a Difference?! Transforming the Discourse of Worklife and Career), I recorded not only what happened to the five career-shifters, but more importantly, how their identity changed as they moved from an enterprise-driven motivation of financial success, to a mission-driven life of service and personal fulfillment. In essence, my doctoral work wrapped scholarship around the practical experiences of my own professional career and personal life.

A new professional vision. My doctoral research on transformative learning, coupled with seven immersive visits I made to Thailand from 2007-2015 (including a service-learning tour I co-led, and several retreats at a Buddhist monestary), and a year-long stint as Interim CEO of the nonprofit Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming proved to transform my own professional identity. Rather than seeking ever more fame and fortune, I settled into my own mastery, and decided I would share the insights and wisdom of my professional, academic and life experiences to whomever might show up seeking direction in fulfilling their own vision for a better world. As it happens, a fascinating collection of clients in the education space showed up (colleges, universities and public school systems). Read on....

A Shift to Education. Since 2012 (after I earned my Ed.D.), I've worked with exectives and their teams from over 20 colleges and universities -- mostly auxiliary services divisions, but also student affairs, health services, finance and administration, IT, etc. My first higher education assignment was at my doctoral alma mater, where I served for ten years on a continuous retainer as Senior Executive Advisor to the UMass Amherst Auxiliary Enteprises Divison. There, I facilitated a culture of excellence within the 1000-member workforce, keeping them focused on the transformative impact their programs were having on students, faculty, staff, parents, alumni, and the regional community. During this period, the UMass Amherst Dining Program emerged in the Princeton Review as the #1-ranked "Best Campus Food" program in the nation, a position they have since held for 8 consecutive years.

Over time, other units in the UMass system, as well as other colleges and universities across the nation took note of the transformation of team culture I was facilitating. For example, in 2017, Cornell University Dining Program retained me to facilitate an 18-month organizatonal development process on their way to a #2 national ranking for best campus food in the Princeton Review. Starting in 2019, my practice expanded into the K-12 food and nutrition services space with similar assignments for the Boston and Minnepolis public school systems. And this past year (2024) I've been advising Auxiliary Services leadership teams at Boston University and Williams College.

COVID and Post-Pandemic Recovery. When COVID-19 shut down most schools in March 2020, my practice was forced to shift to remote services. With the help of several colleagues and production coaches, I spent five months transforming my signature in-person facilition style to be just as effective virtually via the Zoom platform. Along with the new platform, I created and tested a new consulting product: The Team Culture Tune-Up and Mission Alignment Service which has been successfully implemented in several client settings. in 2022, I joined forces with my friend and colleague, Robert Holden (a nationally respected thought leader in the field of higher education auxiliary services) to create the Thinking Bigger Leadership Forum, a professional development program that established a support network among a select group (by-invitation-only) of 13 rising-star higher education executives responsible for administrative units in residential colleges and universities.

Today (2024/2025), my client roster includes both educational insitutions and community/regional nonprofits. As Executive Advisor on Team Culture to a large residential senior care nonprofit in Westchester County NY, I am supporting a transition and transformation process as the organization gears up for dramatic growth in the coming years. Working with front-line caregiviers and their clients has proven to be a very rewarding experience at this stage of my own career.

My Personal Life Today. A hybrid consulting practice enables my wife and I to enjoy spending time in the homes we maintain in Massachusetts, Arizona, and Vermont -- three totally different environments that provide variety of climate and culture. We're also able to spend more and more precious time with our expanding family (our two grown children and four grandkids).

I am focusing my personal interests in two areas: First, since early 2021, I have been sponsoring contemplative Zoom classes offered from Bangkok, Thailand by my meditation and Dhamma teacher, Phra William Thitametho (an Australian-born Theravada Buddhist Monk). I maintain a website of recordings from each class; if you are meditator or interested in learning about Buddhism and contemplative practice, you should check it out! (click here for Phra Will's website)

Lastly, I continue to be very active with the Amherst College alumni community. I am currently serving (through 2025) as President of my Amherst College alumni class. This is my second stint as Class President, serving this amazing group of nearly 300 men from around the world who have lived truly remarkable lives. Our class sponsors live forums on issues of the day, maintains a website and listserv, and organizes regular reunions. Herding these cats takes a lot of time and energy, but it has been an honor and privilege (and enormously satisfying) to build a cohesive community out of so many fascinating and diverse personalities who have known each other and kept in regular touch for over five decades!