Before I was old enough to understand that there was a journey. When I was born, I was diagnosed with hydrocephalus. The prognosis given to my mother was that I would be developmentally disabled and that she should consider it a blessing if I was able to function independently and do basic things like tie my own shoes.
Fortunately for me, I was born into a family with two very strong women, my mother and grandmother. They heard the prognosis, but they did not accept it as the final definition of what my life could become. They believed in God, and they believed that all things were possible.
Where were you born and raised? How did your environment influence your life course?
I was raised in Dobbins Heights, North Carolina, a small community about an hour from Fayetteville. I grew up in a very close extended family. My aunts and uncles were almost like brothers and sisters to me. I come from a family of skilled, hardworking people. My mother was a seamstress. My father was a blacksmith. I had an uncle who was a mechanic, other relatives who were entrepreneurs, and family members who owned businesses, including brick masonry companies.
I grew up seeing people who knew how to work with their hands, create something, solve problems, and provide for themselves and their families. But what probably influenced me even more was that my family was known for helping people.
After high school, what was the next chapter of your life?
I attended Catawba College on a football scholarship and spent four years there. In many ways, that period was also the beginning of my path into criminal justice and public service. While in college, I worked different jobs, including doing some security and bouncing for entertainers. Eventually, I reached a point where I felt like my world had become too small. I wanted to experience more, see more, and challenge myself in a completely different environment. That was one of the reasons I decided to join the United States Air Force.
Looking back, joining the Air Force did exactly what I hoped it would do. It expanded my world. I left North Carolina as a young man who knew there had to be something more out there, and it opened the door to an entirely different chapter of my life.
What is your official title, and what do your responsibilities consist of?
I am the Violence Prevention Manager with the City of Danville. I am also the architect of Project Imagine, the city’s municipally embedded violence prevention and human development initiative. In my role, I lead the city’s violence prevention efforts and oversee the continued development and operation of Project Imagine. My responsibilities include program strategy, staff leadership, case management oversight, workforce development, partnership development and community collaboration, among other things.
I understand that you were recently selected as a Fulbright Specialist. How did that opportunity come about? What exactly will you be doing?
Being selected as a Fulbright Specialist was really an accumulation of my professional, academic, and international work. The selection process is rigorous and competitive. You must demonstrate a level of professional expertise and academic accomplishment that can be valuable internationally.
For me, that represents more than three decades of work in corrections, counseling, workforce development, violence prevention, municipal government, leadership, human development, and systems change. My research has been published in the Journal of Gang Research, and my work has been accepted for presentation at the Stockholm Criminology Symposium.
The overall Fulbright Program operates in more than 160 countries worldwide, and the Fulbright Specialist Program works in more than 150 countries and other areas. I have been selected and placed on the specialist roster based on my particular areas of expertise.
From your vantage point, how does potential become performance?
I think we make a mistake when we talk about potential as though recognizing it is enough. You can tell a young person, an athlete, an employee, or anyone else that they have potential, but potential without development can remain potential forever. Potential becomes performance when we intentionally create the conditions that allow a person to develop.
Can you talk about POTENSTRUCT™?
POTENSTRUCT™ is the body of work I have developed around one central question: How do we create the conditions that allow human potential to become sustainable performance? The name combines potential and structure. At its core is a simple belief: potential does not develop itself.
The structure surrounding a person, team, organization, or community can either help capacity emerge or keep it from ever being fully realized. POTENSTRUCT is not limited to one program or one population. It is an umbrella for the principles, frameworks, and models I have developed around human development, organizational performance, leadership, sports, workforce development, violence prevention, and systems change.
If you were building the ultimate music playlist for a six-hour road trip, which artists would be on it?
I would have Earl Klugh, Betty Wright, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, Nas, New Edition, Jill Scott, Mary J. Blige, and John P. Kee. I would also mix in some old school jazz artists. My taste is broad, so the playlist would move between soul, hip-hop, R&B, gospel and jazz.
Which people have influenced you the most in your life?
My mother, my grandmother, and my extended family members have probably been my greatest influences because they shaped my values and the way I see people. Professionally, especially in the areas of community violence work and working with young people from a humanistic perspective, one of my greatest influences was a mentor I had while working at a detention center in California, Mr. Dan Bill. He helped teach me the programmatic side of working with young people and showed me the importance of seeing the person behind the behavior.
If you could go back and give your younger self some advice, what would it be?
I would tell my younger self that being me does not make me less than and having different ideas does not make me weird. I do not have to prove anything to anybody. Celebrate the victories, learn from the losses, and forgive yourself as easily as you forgive others.
