• I believe true leadership has nothing to do with position.

    A leader is anyone willing to step forward and help.

    Maybe you’re committed to creating change – but you aren’t sure how or where to begin. Start your journey here.

All posts of admin

FAITH AND HARD WORK IN AN ERA OF UPHEAVAL

(part of a series from the “Shipwrecked Project”) There are many definitions of a hard childhood. By any definition Mario had a hard childhood. A childhood shaped by deprivation and struggle. Mario did not have a complete understanding of the reasons his father abandoned his children and his wife. Though his father at one time […]
1 month ago

2016

2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 One of our early Houston founding families supported the creation of settlement houses and community centers, because, as he said, “neighbors should live as friends”. I just recently returned from Germany. A country leading the struggle to welcome newcomers, to make a place for over a million Syrian refugees. German […]
10 months ago

UPHEAVAL

(We’re sick of this damn virus) In the aftermath of disaster there are discernible patterns — stages of thought, behavior and emotions. Fifteen ago I began to map them. To document — from the experiences of people who’d faced the unthinkable — those patterns and stages. You can read some of what I’ve written about them on my website. This is […]
11 months ago

My appeal to Mayor Sylvester Turner and Judge Lina Hidalgo

Dear Mayor Sylvester Turner and Judge Lina Hidalgo: Let me be frank. If you step up and lead — call upon sector leaders to join you in navigating this unthinkable twin disaster — you will win the resources and support needed to have a more effective and orderly recovery. If you don’t do this, you will find […]
12 months ago

Louisiana On My Mind —

I am thinking of some of my most treasured relationships. People in Louisiana. Friends and family. Many Louisiana friends are “storm friends”. We came to know one another in the aftermath of Katrina. We’ve seen horrible stuff. We’ve hugged in a street surrounded by wreckage, when everything was gray dust covered, with the smell of […]
1 year ago

7 Stages of Disaster Recovery: How the Light Gets In

“There is a crack in everything. It’s how the light gets in.” -Leonard Cohen About twelve years ago I began collecting stories — stories that emerged from working with people who had survived disasters. There were so many lessons in these stories. After a time, I began to notice that the wisdom I heard and […]
1 year ago

The Oath Takers

Some of us are in professions that require the taking of an oath. We ask it of doctors, of soldiers, of public servants. Of those we elect to represent us. Of people we entrust with power. Our doctors swear to ”respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk… and apply […]
1 year ago

ENOUGH TODAY

I slept badly and woke up with a sense of dread. A few moments during which I knew something was wrong but I didn’t know what. And then I remembered. #COVID-19 I am filled with dread because we have been told that it will get much worse before it gets better. Much much worse. Italian […]
1 year ago

FERAL HOGS: In Disasters

Anti-fragility We woke up today to a story about the people we elected using their knowledge of what was coming — a potential pandemic — to enrich themselves. In every disaster there is the “betrayal stage”. That’s the moment when the realization comes that some part of this suffering could have been avoided. And that […]
1 year ago

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS ANGELA BLANCHARD?

AND WHAT HAS SHE BEEN DOING SINCE BAKERRIPLEY? …answering all the questions I am most often asked about what I’m doing… YOU WERE WITH BAKERRIPLEY FOR A VERY LONG TIME. DO YOU MISS IT? I miss the people, not the position. I was ready — like a baked cake — it was time to get […]
1 year ago