Now happily retired and living in Berkeley, Jean was a nationally recognized consultant in state agency and non-profit organizational development and systems transformation. Her areas of expertise included strategic planning, organizational change, and Medicaid waiver development. She has extensive experience implementing structures that support the long-term health of organizations, both governmental and non-profit. Spending decades working with, and on behalf of a significantly marginalized groups of people, she is especially dedicated to facilitating groups oriented towards helping people identify their goals and have a powerful voice in self-governance. She worked at the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), where she assisted in the Medicaid implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Jean served as the Executive Director for the non-profit organization Refuge Recovery and later went on to be a co-founder of Recovery Dharma- both Buddhist-based substance abuse recovery organizations. Since 1977, she’s been active in supporting Arcosanti, a live/work/build project in the Arizona desert that addresses climate change and urban sprawl.

Jean graduated from Southern Illinois University and has a master’s degree in Public Policy from the University of Massachusetts. Her academic work also includes executive sessions at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University as well as Harvard Business School.