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ABOUT US
One of the first places I check on a new website is the ABOUT US button. I want to know who I am talking to; who is behind all this, and what level of credibility to give their information.
My BS detector is highly refined, but my time is limited. Yours too. I intend to provide you with the same best-efforts that I seek, with a minimum of BS.
My name is Clinton Callahan. I have specialized in facilitating cultural transformation with groups and individuals since 1975. I am in the Possibilica Team and am responsible for the contents of this Just-Stop / Arkbuilder website, although, if this website proves to be useful, the contents will develop through the contributions of many others.
I was born in 1952 in Kansas, USA. My father almost immediately moved us to Pennsylvania. After my two brothers were born he moved us again, this time all the way across the USA to the Palos Verdes Peninsula, a coastal suburb of Los Angeles. I was five. My parents were upstanding, though a-political and rather private citizens. My father loved airplanes and worked as a troubleshooting mechanical engineer in various aircraft industries his whole career. He loved to travel and explore, and taught me how to snorkel in the rocky Pacific Ocean waves, and how to find and eat giant purple sea urchins raw, fresh from the sea. My mother stayed Mom her whole life, though she got certified as a librarian, taught first aid classes to firemen, and worked at the Job Corps. Both her parents were pure Czech, and she carried on certain cultural traditions as an amazing seamstress, needle worker, and cook. My training in chemistry and physics began in her kitchen.
So overall, my childhood was rather well sheltered from the more shadowy sides of life. I was left unperturbed to pursue my interests of finding out what is really going on and what I can do with it. That search developed into a passion for me. I left my parent’s house early summer 1970, skipping my High School graduation ceremony to enter the National Science Foundation’s Summer Science Program in Physics and Mathematics at Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina. My two brothers drove all the way from California to pick me up, and after the cross-country trip back I entered Cal Poly. I avoided getting drafted into the Viet Nam war for two years through college deferments and then by pure luck, when my birth date pulled a high draft number.
In terms of studying scientific papers, I earned a degree in Physics from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo in 1975. One of my teachers was Dr. David Hafemeister, famous for astonishingly accurate back-of-the-envelope calculations. Dr. Hafemeister would give me special homework assignments to find the errors in papers from people who claimed to have created what Einstein could not: a Universal Field Theory, or to have developed perpetual motion machines. From 1984 until 2000 I started and managed Computer Effects Company in Northern California, and, in partnership with Alan Friedman of Synertron, prototyped and produced cutting- edge biomedical instruments for DNA research, such as programmable thermal cyclers for Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), and power supplies for Gel Phase Electrophoresis.
In terms of cultural relativity, I have traveled and / or worked in 35 different countries (USA, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Kiribati, Fiji, Tonga, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Japan, Taiwan, China, Thailand, India, Nepal, Greece, Italy, Germany, Austria, Latvia, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Spain, France, Czech Republic, Belgium, Netherlands, England, Israel, and Turkey). I was born in USA, but I have lived outside of the USA for almost a third of my life, including ten years in France, and since 2005 in Germany.
In terms of “green” housing I worked with my ex-wife and with Michael Frerking and his team at Living Systems LLC www.michaelfrerking.com to build a passive solar rammed-earth home with an earth floor in Prescott, Arizona in 1992-1993. The house was sold in 2004.
In terms of child raising and home schooling, my two daughters were born at home with a midwife and were home schooled their entire lives. We were one of the original founding families of the Northern California Homeschool Association in 1987 http://www.hsc.org/about. My daughters passed their GED tests and have been attending university level courses for professional training in Europe.
In terms of alternative culture I have been experimenting with temporary community and synergetic education successfully since 1975, including projects in Mexico, Honduras, Australia, Northern California and Arizona. With my ex-wife in 1995 I founded and managed a successful spiritual retreat center near Poitiers, France, for 10 years. She still manages that center.
In terms of credibility and publications, I presented a paper and workshop at the International Transactional Analysis Association Conference in San Francisco, California, in August 2007. I have developed the field of Possibility Management since 1975 and have two related books published in German, Abenteuer Denken in 2004 (reprinted 2007), and Wahre Liebe im Alltag in 2007 both from Genius Verlag, one book in English, Radiant Joy Brilliant Love from Hohm Press in 2007, and numerous articles in various business journals, mostly in German. Some of the more important articles are available for download on our website www.callahan-academy.com in both English and German.
In terms of the leadership training business, my own apprenticeship began in 1990 with Heartstream Education. After I was certified as a trainer in 1993 I began delivering their trainings in USA, Germany and Austria. Soon after that I developed an advanced training program for their graduates, and also successfully trained their trainers. Using the advanced tools and models I developed and delivered the first Expand The Box training in March, 1998 in Hamburg, Germany. At the same time I founded what has now become Callahan Academy GmbH, to provide authentic personal development for business managers and entrepreneurs. In 2001 I began leading Possibility Labs and we started the Possibility Manager Certification Program. In 2006 we started Trainer Labs and the Possibility Trainer Certification Program. I have delivered management development trainings for IBM, Deutsche Bank, CSC, EMC, EADS, and many smaller firms. I developed and deliver four new meeting technologies: POP (Place Of Possibility), The Problem Is The Solution, Just Stop Team, and Big Mad. Then in October 2007 in Utrecht, Netherlands, I was trained to deliver Open Space Technology and World Café at the Art of Hosting / Integral Training by Tim Merry, Peter Merry, Tatiana Glad, and Arjen Bos of www.engage.nu. Today I co-direct Callahan Academy with Marion Krause, and with the help of Sonia Willaredt, who is the main manager of this website.
I realize that if I want to change the results and I cannot change the circumstances, then I must change what is possible. This website is dedicated to changing what is possible. This website is sponsored by a loose network of like-minded responsible individuals.