Who We Are

We are a group of professionals committed to advancing Community Consensus to help groups find resolution to knotty problems and to provide training in this skill set. 

While we’ve followed a range of career paths, we are united in the belief that:

  • Conflict isn’t what impedes us, but fear of conflict often is

  • The route to solving a problem often runs through and beyond what we assume is impossible

  • There are ways to structure organizations and meetings so as to bring out the best in everybody

Judith D. Schwartz

Judith D. Schwartz is a journalist who has written three books on nature-inspired solutions to global crises. At some point it dawned on her that information, however well-reported, will not spur change; we need to address the human side. Enter Community Consensus, which she highlighted in The Reindeer Chronicles. Judith has an MSJ from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and an MA in Counseling from Northwestern. She lives in Vermont. Website: www.judithdschwartz.com

Jeff Goebel

Jeff Goebel is a leading expert in helping individuals and communities attain their goals and remove the obstacles that lie in the way, with over thirty-five years of national and international successes in consensus building, conflict resolution, and regenerative solutions. His recent clients include the National Geographic Society, federal and state agencies, and various tribes across the United States. He has worked on parent-teacher partnerships in public and private schools, complex eco-restoration and socio-economic renewal programs in Molokai, the Dust-on-Snow issue in the Colorado Rockies, and Navajo healthy soil restoration.

Mark Spain

Mark Spain is a senior partner and facilitator at Global Learning, a Canberra based consulting firm that works around Australia building dynamic and authentic leaders and teams in business, government and community organisations. His work is focused on transforming business, society, and self – building collective capacity for deep innovation. Mark has many years experience with dialogue and deep listening especially with complex living system challenges that are stuck and conflicted. Once all voices are heard and respected and all involved reflect on their learning new pathways can emerge that were unseen before. Mark has worked with Jeff Goebel to bring The Consensus Institute to practitioners in Australia and USA. Bringing humanity and nature back into balance and harmony

Tony Eprile

Tony Eprile’s novel, The Persistence of Memory, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and winner of the Koret Jewish Book prize.. He has taught literature, translation, writing, and Observation workshops throughout the U.S. and in the Middle East, and his writing and photography has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, Gourmet, Discover, the Washington Post and elsewhere. Tony comes to Consensus through a long interest in restorative justice and conflict resolution. He traveled with South Africa’s Peace Accords and spoke on “Justice, Memory, and Compassion” at the New Symposium in Paros, Greece. He grew up in an anti-Apartheid family in South Africa and now lives in Vermont.