Hi! I’m Jo.

I'm a facilitator, educator, and organizational consultant who supports youth-serving organizations to build human-centered cultures. I came to this work the way most people do: through my own experience of needing it. 

My formative years led me to work with youth.

For as long as I can remember, I have been driven by a deep need for authentic connection. Raised in the Yampa Valley in the mountains of northwestern Colorado, I grew up in a small community and with a deep sense of place in the natural landscape. As a teen, I struggled with depression, anxiety, and deep loneliness, and turned toward substance use and self-harm as a way to manage and cope with emotional experiences I didn't yet have language or support for.

I was drawn to working with youth because I wanted to create for them what I didn’t have: experiences of genuine connection, empowerment, and mutual vulnerability. And I quickly discovered that the most powerful tool I had as an educator wasn't any curriculum or technique, it was my own authenticity. My commitment to doing my own inner work made me more effective in the room than any content that I shared. The quality of the outer work, I learned, is a direct extension of the inner work.

And then I burned out.

For years, I worked in direct service with young people—as a conservation corps crew leader, challenge course facilitator, program director, and alternative high school teacher—doing meaningful work I truly loved. And I burned out.

My sense of identity faltered while I was struggling with burnout: I had always been someone who cared deeply about the youth I worked with. Compassion has been a core value for me for most of my adult life, but suddenly I struggled to access it. 

I was doing the work inside of organizations where the focus was on meeting youth where they were at, on trauma-informed approaches, on building authentic relationships: all of which I believe in, wholeheartedly. But the same care and relational skill that staff were being asked to bring to young people simply wasn't present in how the adults were held. These were cultures of chronic stress, leadership disconnected from people's real needs, and the unspoken expectation that passion was enough to sustain people.

It isn't. And I think we need to say that out loud.

The shift from youth work to culture work.

Too many youth-serving organizations run on what I think of as the myth of martyrdom: the idea that if you really care then you give without limit, you push through the burnout, you do more with less to make it work. That mythology is toxic. It damages the people doing the work and, ultimately, the young people they're trying to serve. We cannot sustainably model regulation, reflection, and authentic relationship inside cultures that don’t prioritize those same things for the adults.

That recognition is what shifted my focus from direct service to organizational culture. It's not a departure from the work. It's the same work, applied where it was always missing. The relational work has to happen at every level, or it's incomplete. 

Embodying grounded leadership

The quality of the outer work is an extension of the inner work. This truth is at the core of my work because I have seen firsthand, again and again, that the deepest shifts happen when we are willing and able to show up with vulnerability, authenticity, and humility. Not perfection (perfect isn’t real!), but the messy wholeness of our humanity. 

And I know that I can’t ask this of others if I’m not doing these things myself. Which means consistent meditation and reflection practices, long walks in the forest with my pup Rosie, lots of time with my beloved besties and my wife Jolee, and an ongoing commitment to personal growth and embodying my values (including plenty of self-compassion when I inevitably fall short). 

The credentials, if you’d like.

Also, I’m a giant nerd and if I could go to school for the rest of my life, I would.

I have a Master's of Science in Education and am a certified Mindfulness Meditation Teacher. I've studied the impacts of developmental trauma through Dr. Bruce Perry's Neurosequential Network and the science of interpersonal neurobiology with Dr. Dan Siegel. My approach integrates neuroscience, experiential education, and ecological systems thinking, and has been shaped by over fifteen years of working with youth and adults across educational, nonprofit, and organizational settings. You can learn more about my approach here.

I’d love to connect with you.

If something on this page resonated—if you recognized your organization in any of it, or recognized yourself—I'd love to talk. Not a sales call. Just a real conversation about where you are and what you're working toward.