Over the past several years, I’ve worked with Jeffry through our men’s programming initiative (AMP) to develop offerings focused on resilience, honest connection, and practical personal growth. I also support other facets of the Center for Integrated Well-Being. Our base is in the Twin Cities, MN, and I currently live in rural Colorado. We’re actively expanding into online formats to increase access and reach.

I first met Jeffry in 2018 when I created a community viewing and discussion event for The Mask You Live In. As part of the event, I compiled a handout featuring anonymous quotes from internet strangers, event participants, friends, and public figures. You can access it here.

I’ve spent much of my life in male-dominated environments and career fields while vacillating between inner cities and small rural towns, often feeling most comfortable in blue-collar settings and countercultural communities. Those experiences exposed me to a wide range of perspectives on identity and belonging. Over time, I noticed a consistent pattern: males would often open up to me one-on-one about significant struggles, but rarely with each other or in broader social contexts. Having often felt outside conventional gender expectations myself, this experience further resonated with me. It highlighted how rigid gender norms can limit emotional expression and misshape relational dynamics between girls and boys, and men and women. I’ve also experienced the loss of close male friendships as some friends were drawn into increasingly polarized spaces that reinforced isolation and resentment, which deepened my commitment to this work.

Social psychology has long been my primary area of interest within the social sciences. I’m especially interested in how systems, behavior, and identity shape human experience. I gravitate toward Jungian depth psychology, which understands traits as part of an integrated human psyche rather than a rigid male/female dichotomy. At the core of my part in men’s work is the belief that when boys and men are supported in developing emotional awareness, responsibility, and relational maturity, it benefits everyone. It can reduce isolation and the pressure of narrow cultural definitions of manhood. It also helps shift patterns in which women are placed (often unconsciously) into roles such as emotional caretakers, base intimacy substitutes, or validation sources, supporting healthier and more direct human relationships across the board. It can also challenge the assumption that girls and women are born more emotionally or relationally skilled, recognizing that these capacities are largely shaped through expectation, support, practice, and culture.

I’m currently finishing an MS in Security Technologies (GIS minor). I hold a BS in Social Science with a Military Science minor, an AAS in Avionic Systems Technology, and Law Enforcement Skills and Academic Certificates. My professional background includes military avionics (B-52Hs and C-130s, primarily flightline), audiovisual project coordination, emergency preparedness, security and surveillance, medicolegal death investigation (Deputy Coroner), trades delivery driving, logistics, administrative and operational management, and municipal utilities maintenance (water/wastewater).

I’m generally happiest building and optimizing systems, solving operational problems, and creating structures that keep things moving. While you’ll occasionally see me or hear from me, my natural place is behind the scenes making things work and spotlighting others in our co-creations.