A Narrative—My Sojourner’s Resume
My Faith Journey as it Intersects with Calling and Career.
Discovery
My faith journey (life-course) has inextricably shaped my work-vocation. My intentioned travels began in high school when an internal “God sense” began to stir in my Catholic upbringing. There was more to life, I perceived, than what my late adolescence world was offering. It was in a study carrel on the fourth floor of the University of Minnesota’s Wilson library, as a freshman, that God revealed the full nature of his uncontainable love and intimate desire for me. I was beckoned, and I responded.
I was studying toward a forestry degree, following a proclivity for the outdoors and aptitude for the natural sciences. However, through some formative college experiences, I sensed God redirecting me.
First, there were two summers serving on a mission project with Campus Crusade for Christ (now CRU) at a camp for disadvantaged youth in Lumberton, Mississippi. It was here that I was introduced to counseling and leadership.
The next experience was an Intro to Sociology course at the U of M taught by a particularly arrogant professor. This seemed an unlikely place to hear God’s whisper, but as much as I disliked the professor’s teaching manner, I found his text book captivating. This led to deep conversations around faith, work, and calling with trusted faculty and spiritual mentors. Within this reflective space I sensed being drawn “out of the forest” and toward working with people. Wanting to incorporate my new faith into my emerging career focus, I transferred into the psychology program at Bethel University.
At Bethel I was exposed to a new universe of learning, discipleship, community, and leadership. My junior year I became an R.A.; my senior year a T.A. for a psychology professor; I interned in the Career Services office; met the woman I would marry; and secured a one-year externship following graduation. In addition, I gained a biblical literacy and confidence in my passion for academic life.
Adventure
Adventure followed graduation as my new bride and I were off to Grand Canyon and Death Valley National Parks for a one-year externship with A Christian Ministry in the National Parks. There my wife and I served as co-ministers to a weekly congregation of 300+ people consisting of a handful of permanent residents, concession workers, and visitors to the National Park. This experience honed my teaching, exposed some pastoral gifts, bolstered my leadership, and affirmed the value of marriage as it relates to ministry, calling, career, and vocation. My wife and I have continued to serve as a team wherever God has led us.
Leadership
This experience was followed by graduate school, and then to my first career job launching the inaugural Office of Job Placement Services at Elgin Community College. Four years later I moved to Harper College as a Career Center coordinator and then eventual Director of the Career Center. At Harper I was given the opportunity to re-vision and remodel the Career Center with funds secured through a partnership with the College’s foundation. This season of life was characterized by growth in multiple areas; career and leadership responsibility within higher education; family (three children); faith and ministry (involvement at Willow Creek launching a men’s ministry); and intellectual growth as I completed a Masters in Organizational Development.
When I was approached by Motorola to come and manage a multi-site office targeting the development of next generation leaders, and promoting a self-directed career management model to professional employees, I sensed God calling me from Higher Ed to industry. At Motorola I was given the opportunity to build and express my creativity, intrapreneurship, program management, and leadership in new ways in a global setting within the corporate environment.
Entrepreneurship
Faith is best tested in the crucible of trials. When the 2001 tech bust hit, the global technology sector reacted with massive layoffs, and I lost my job, but gained an entrepreneurial appetite. I started a consulting practice, Intelligent Design, offering leadership and management coaching and programs in both the collegiate and corporate worlds.
One of my business advisers become a business partner. We capitalized on his corporate financial experience working as president of a $60 million subsidiary of Kodak and my years growing up within a three-generation general contracting family. Mike knew contracts and financing (administration), and I knew construction (field general). We bought a piece of property, designed a house, assembled our trade partners, and led the charge toward spec home building—all the while remaining in our day jobs. We sold that house two months prior to it being finished, so we decided to do it again. Our residential home building business, KR Custom Builders, was birthed and we experienced tremendous success.
The real estate crash of 2008 brought its hardships as the housing market came to a halt. We were holding one completed home and finishing another. It took us three years to unburden ourselves of those properties. God was honored in that everyone got paid (but us). During the downturn we diversified into remodeling and commercial building. Through this period my faith, grit, and perseverance was greatly challenged, yet God was sufficient in supplying not only our “daily bread” but taught me to listen with more intentionality. Our company endured, and construction has once again proved fruitful.
Obedience (sometimes Disobedience)
Emerging from the 2008 downturn, I answered another call on my life. I realized that though I had been “listening” to God, I was not necessarily “tuning” to all his vocational channels. I came to realize I had been quietly resistive and disobedient to a call to get involved in the young adult ministry, Axis, at Willow Creek Community Church. Inklings kept igniting an excitement in my spirit that would prompt me to “make that call on Monday”. But Mondays would come and go. I made that call four years ago, and since, have been on a meteoric ministry trajectory getting me deeply involved in the lives of our church’s college and young adult professional members. My wife and I started monthly gatherings of intentional fellowship called “Living Room Sessions” where we gather 20-30 young adults in our home for a meal and conversations about critical issues in their faith lives. I’ve engaged over a dozen of these 20-somethings into deeper mentoring relationships. My wife and I are also House Group Leaders for our high school ministry, Student Impact, overseeing 7 leaders under the age of 25 and shepherding 30 or so high school students from Streamwood High School.
Translating my Journey to Other’s Pathways
Proteus is one of hundreds of mythical Greek gods. Two of Proteus’ great powers are his ability to peer into the future and the capacity to change bodily forms. With these attributes, Proteus can anticipate the future and then change himself in the present to take advantage of the imminent oncoming realities. The “protean mindset” or “protean career” is a metaphorical model that might help us to understand our careers/vocation/calling in this ever-changing and globally-connected world. This protean mindset enfolds the required mutability and flexibility required to fully liberate the potential God has seeded in the “soil of our soul.”
The narrative of my life journey—with its native abilities, experiences, learning, and practice—is one of the text books from which I share when I mentor, coach, and teach. This along with my understanding of human development, spiritual formation, job search dynamics, and the theological underpinnings of call, calling, and vocation provide the palette for my practice.
Family Matters
Indeed family deeply matters to me. Sharon and I have been married for over 35 years (1983) and sojourn as best friends. We have three three adult children broadcast East to West in Brooklyn, Elgin, and Denver. A grandson. A yellow lab named Meika, and a cat named Moose.
Our Second Home and Season – the Highway
In 2017 we purchased, gutted, and completely renovated a 28′ aluminum travel trailer. The exterior is a 1979 Silver Streak (a near cousin to Airstream). The interior is feels like a Seattle Loft. In 2019 we took our 220 square foot tiny home on tour from Chicago to Denver to New York and back. For the past 35 years we have spent a least part of our summers in tents exploring our great continent. This next season of “camping/exploring” will be done with aid of solar power, microwave, mattresses, a bathroom, and heat/AC.
