Karen Jacobs Cook’s GBH Photo
The younger of my Mom’s two brothers had two daughters, Karen Sue and Debbie. Karen is a year older than I. Life took all of us in different directions. Decades had passed since we last communicated. Early this past spring, Karen and I found each other on LinkedIn. I had no clue that Karen had […]
Football Season Already!
It’s August! Still summer, yet I’m preparing remarks to welcome new and returning football players and coaches to campus for the August 5, first official day of fall practice. My remarks, while crafted specifically to this purpose, fit any enterprise. Although I will not preach my full-throated Nature-Inspired sermon to the team, I could easily […]
Looking Ahead to 2018
Don’t get me wrong — I am fully and positively engaged in my Fairmont State University journey, flourishing and reveling in the experience. Great people, a wonderful place, and an unrivaled cause. I count my blessings each and every day. Yet I must be ever-unconscious that this pleasant northern West Virginia passage is finite. July […]
An Ecosystems Approach to My Interim Presidency
My approach to learning and evaluating, and then developing recommendations for any enterprise varies little from how I would have assessed (and then managed) a wooded property when I practiced forestry. I have been retained as Interim President to learn, evaluate, and make recommendations here at Fairmont State University (FSU). A Broad Overview and Context […]
Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading: now available
Steve’s Second Book is Available! I am announcing my new book, the second in a series breaking fertile ground in the business and enterprise management and leadership field, and in the arena of Nature enthusiasm/appreciation and applied ecology. Now president of my fourth university and founder of the Nature Based Leadership Institute, I do […]
Four New Killdeer Residents — Deep Lessons from our Partnership with Nature
May 20, 2017, we noticed a six-inch diameter dimple in the round elevated bed (where we had planted one of our backyard specimen trees — a Japanese maple — earlier in the spring) 15 feet from the patio. We wondered what bird had taken the time to make its mark… and why? The next day […]
Posted Interview of the Author of Nature Based Leadership
I am thrilled — bookscover2cover just posted an interview with me: https://bookscover2cover.com/author-interviews/. Open the link and click my photo for the interview. Sandy Fluck, the site’s creator (with Justine Fluck’s incomparable technical support), performs magic in asking the right questions to draw me into explaining and describing the essence of my first book, Nature Based […]
Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading
This blog appears on the Future Fit Leadership Academy (FFLA) web site: http://ffla.co/#contact. London-based FFLA “provides real-life education – applied transformative development; pioneering thinking and doing for the day-to-day practicalities of leadership and organizational transformation.” FFLA Guest blog (May 2017) by Steve Jones, PhD I’m pleased to be designated Faculty at the Future Fit Leadership […]
A Special Assignment: Interim President Fairmont State University
Across the forty-four years since earning my forestry bachelors degree, I have been blessed by unbelievable opportunity and good fortune. These past 12 months have led me to publish two books (the second scheduled for release mid-summer) and create and launch Great Blue Heron, LLC. Now another alignment of serendipity and fortuity! Effective late July […]
TRex Makes a Call
Please consider this blog as an early summer interlude. A break from more serious Natural musings. The Huntsville Botanical Gardens (http://hsvbg.org/) is currently hosting a few Jurassic guests — animatronic dinosaurs (http://hsvbg.org/event/dinosaurs-uproar-alive/). We visited Saturday with our two local grandsons, 9.5-year-old Jack and 3.25-year-old-Sam. As we walked into the gardens, Sam talked non-stop about how […]
Nature Based Leadership Book Review
I am pleased to post an external book review for Nature Based Leadership, my first book: https://bookscover2cover.com/…/nature-based-leadership-liv…/ Please take a few minutes to see whether the book might interest you. Many thanks, Steve
Nature’s Triumph and Tragedy on Big Blue Lake: April 21, 2017
We had watched the Canada Goose pair along our near-east shore for more than a month. First, they began frequenting the stretch of shoreline, seeming to stake claim. One of the two aggressively chased away intruders. Next, they scratched and prepared a nest 2-3 feet from water’s edge. April 7, we saw the female at […]