After more than 30 years in senior roles with many of the policy community's leading philanthropies, think tanks, and advocacy groups, I launched my AdvocacyCraft evaluation consulting practice and took on a new role as a part-time local politician. Clients have included the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, Ford Foundation, Democracy Fund, Aspen Institute, Andrew Goodman Foundation, Sheriffs for Trusting Communities, and Carnegie Corporation of New York. Most recently I worked jointly with Kathleen Sullivan on a review of the Ford Foundation's $118M grantmaking portfolio aimed at curbing harsh immigration enforcement.  

From 2014-2015, I was a consulting program officer for the Hewlett Foundation, helping wind down its $25M Nuclear Security Initiative. Before that I spent over a decade at the Stanley Center for Peace and Security bringing together top experts and officials to devise proposals on subjects ranging from the evolution of the G20, to climate change and refugee protection. Previously I worked for a series of organizations in the policy community including Human Rights First, Refugees International, Search for Common Ground, British American Security Information Council (BASIC), Arms Control Association, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and NYPIRG.

On top of "day job" responsibilities, I was active in my personal capacity—writing articles, blogging, advising political campaigns, and ultimately putting my own name on a ballot. My articles appeared in Washington Quarterly, Foreign Policy, Survival, Policy Review, and World Politics Review. I was a main blogger on Democracy Arsenal and regular contributor to TPMCafé. I served on the foreign policy team for both of President Obama's campaigns and was principal adviser to then-candidate Al Franken from 2005-2009.  In my own political career, I was elected to four terms on the Stevens Point City Council and passed the baton to a friend and neighbor in April 2024. To support the Democratic cause here in Wisconsin, I spearheaded a new Environmental Caucus for the state Party. 

My book on the Republican Party's veer away from workable policy approaches—titled I Call Bullshit: Four Fallacies That Keep Our Politics From Being Reality-Based—was published in August 2016. Two earlier books were co-edited volumes. I collaborated with Michael Schiffer on Powers and Principles: International Leadership in a Shrinking World (Lexington Books), in which analysts outlined how pivotal powers could bolster the rules-based international order. Bridging the Foreign Policy Divide (Routledge) is a collection of bipartisan essays co-edited with Derek Chollet and Tod Lindberg. 

My formal training was in the Harvard Kennedy School's MPA program, on top of a BA in religious studies from Brown University.  A lifelong fan of pop music, I published an essay at PopMatters on what The Clash mean to me. In January 2024, I began hosting a reggae-themed radio show, Connecting Flights, which explores the cross-fertilization of the music of Jamaica, the US, and the UK. I live in Stevens Point with my wife and our black lab Caber—our adult child having flown the coop to points west.