I am a former Catholic priest who for 25 years was a an editor and writer at the Des Moines Register and other newspapers. Both these professions, and the training that led to them, were good preparation for  training in and the practice of mediation. I have provided victim-offender mediations for the Polk County Attorney's Office for over five years and have done various other kinds of mediations for the county attorney's office - including juvenile mediations at area high schools. Those mediations were often held in Spanish.

I also did weekly mediation sessions, through the Polk County Attorney's Office and the Des Moines Police Department, between Hispanic parents and their teenaged children - typically dealing with the cultural and generational clashes often experienced by Hispanic immigrants to the U.S.

I have mediated between landowners and their creditors, attorneys and accountants. And for several years I have been a facilitator in cases involving the Iowa Department of Human Services and parents whose children have been removed from the home or are at risk of removal. This practice requires setting up and conducting meetings to help the agencies, clients and their attorneys devise a plan to return children to their homes or to keep them there.  

B.A. in philosophy, Immaculate Conception Seminary, Conception, Mo.

M.A. in religion, Immaculate Conception Seminary, Conception, Mo.

M.S. in Journalism/Mass Communication, Iowa State University, Ames, Ia.