Ernest M. Beal, Jr.

6833 Covington Creek Trail, Fort Wayne, IN 46804 Phone: 260.494.0320 Email: ernie.beal@gmail.com

LEADERSHIP HUMAN SERVICES SOCIAL JUSTICE

Visionary leader with extensive experience across a full spectrum of human service and social justice programs. Proven success advancing social justice causes, creating innovative services, managing quality programs, and facilitating leadership teams. Demonstrated ability to fuse mission, operational, financial, and technology interests into cohesive, driven, and focused activities. Exceptional project management, human resource, staff development, and team leadership skills. Seeking senior leadership role with innovative and dynamic enterprise.

PROFILE

WORK EXPERIENCE
VISION | WORKS, Inc. President

Fort Wayne, IN June 2010 to present

Generating social entrepreneurship within human service organizations and through the executives leading them by strategic vision, business development, fund-raising, project management, and leadership development. Project coordinator for closing existing and opening new 900 bed state correctional hospital and clinic. PEJUS, Inc. Fort Wayne, IN Chief Operating Officer September 1987 to May 2010 Led transition from small, family-oriented residential, vocational, and clinical services agency (35 employees; $1M annual sales) to large multistate enterprise (600+ employees; $25M annual sales). Created Indianas first residential programs for persons with dual diagnosis, profound disabilities, and significant behavioral challenges, as well as innovative comprehensive mental health centers (in Indiana, Georgia, and Florida) supporting persons with dual disabilities (mental retardation and mental health). Comprehensive therapeutic work with individuals with significant challenges, e.g. persons with severe or pervasive mental retardation, individuals who are dually diagnosed, and adults and children with behavioral health needs. Led new development teams for both new markets (Atlanta, GA; Indianapolis, IN; and Lakeland/Fort Myers, FL) as well as expanded services (computer learning centers, vocational services, and clinical professional teams). Planned and implemented web-based clinical records system, video conference-based managerial and clinical rounds processes, and innovative behavioral analysis diagnostic systems. Developed and implemented staff development, regulatory compliance, and continuous quality improvement programs leading simultaneous national accreditation in all theaters of operation (an accreditation agency first). Legal Practice Fort Wayne, IN Attorney July 1980 to December 1992 Successful civil litigator. Handled more than 400 federal court cases involving civil rights claims, employment disputes, and related public policy matters. Secured both individual and class-wide relief, including ratio hiring and promotion remedies in municipal police employment class action. Successfully revised municipal civil rights ordinance (in 1978) to include protections against discrimination based on sexual identity and disabilities, making local community distinctive as leader in civil rights prohibition. Peer-identified as one of Woodward and Whites Best Lawyers in America for civil rights practice. Served on United States District Courts Rules Committee.

EDUCATION
Capella University, Ph.D. (in process) St. Paul, MN Coursework complete. Academic focus: individual, organizational, and social transformation. Doctoral dissertation (under preparation) involves the life and writings of Dr. Graham Taylor (1856-1938), a pioneer in American Social Christianity and Chicago civic reform. Emory University, Candler School of Theology, M. Div. Atlanta, GA Focus of study: pastoral leadership, psychology of religion, social ethics. Awarded merit-based scholarship for specialized skill in parish ministry. Completed three-year degree one semester early while continuing to work full time as PEJUS, Inc. Chief Operating Officer. Northeastern University, School of Law, J.D. Boston, MA Editor, Northeastern University Newsletter. Cooperative education placements at Fort Wayne Metropolitan Human Relations Commission (3 months), Susquehanna Legal Services (6 months), and National Center for Law and the Handicapped (9 months). Indiana University, B.A. Sociology Fort Wayne, IN Deans honors list. Completed undergraduate degree in three years, working full time for two of them. Post graduation, completed nine hours of graduate accounting coursework, Graduate School of Business.

ACHIEVEMENTS
You will find me a unique candidate. For two decades I served as the entrepreneurial engine as well as the driving force for the values associated with a complex health, education, and human service organization. Fusing ingenuity, creativity, passion, and hard work, I led the company through significant development projects, reorganization, and change. Timely delivery of these projects did not occur by accident; I used elaborate project management tools and maintained tight control over implementation details. Moreover, managing these massive development projects was not my only work; I continued to perform regular duties as COO (albeit from the field). In the interim between major development projects as the company continued to grow incrementally I focused my energies on structural realignments essential due to the effects of rapid growth (including many technology initiatives). To my recent work experience (if one can call the fruits of two decades recent) I add my earlier successful work as a human and civil rights lawyer. That work, too, resulted in a strong legacy. Every success detailed in this resume and the many challenges each engendered were overcome by maintaining a can do attitude,, rolling up my sleeves, and working hard. Though I may be able to do the same thing in any organization, I want to do it where my gifts and grace make a difference in the lives of other people. 12.2007 - 06.2010 PEJUS: Change Management & Information Systems Project Led multiple systems reformation, procedural revision, and new technology initiatives. Technology projects included selecting and implementing a video-conference based connection between all administrative locations, new finance and human resource systems, and a web-based clinical records system (involved new computers in more than 100 sites, training 400 direct support workers, redesigning program systems, and new oversight models). Secured upfront costs through new financing partners with annual costs thereof funded by travel savings through video-management model. 10.2007 - 07.2009 ROSEWATER: Community Life Centers Led reorganization of five regionally dispersed day centers for folks with disabilities into an innovative Community Life program operated by a PEJUS affiliate. Project entailed new budgets, rates, and resources; rehabilitating existing facilities; curricular redesign; development of new systems; staff training; as well as creating a standalone behavioral health center for persons with mental health, intellectual disabilities, and challenging behaviors (engendered $250K new revenue). 07.2006 - 06.2007 PEJUS: Growth Project V At state government request, planned, built, and opened specialized therapeutic facilities for persons with significant challenging behavior. Project involved fast-track construction of five facilities at cost of $500K each and related financing. Together with other incremental growth across same period company grew by $7.5M annually in this 12 month period. 11.1999 - 12.2000 PEJUS: Growth Project IV Developed new vocational training and residential services in Georgia. From $0 base created a $2.5M program with 60 employees across a 9 month period. Within one 75 day period located, staffed, and opened for occupancy 20 residential sites scattered throughout the state. (Involved commercial lease negotiation, capital financing, and extensive HR activity.) 07.1997 - 12.1999 PEJUS: Growth Project III Substantial increase in Florida operations, opening up three new geographic centers of activity and resulting in 100% increase in annual revenues for program. Project activities included successful bid proposals to new governmental partners, generating capital and non-capital funding from new sources , purchase/lease of real estate, staff selection/training, and significant program development. Grew organization by additional $7.5M in this period. 07.1997 - 12.1998 FOURTH WAVE: Futurekids Learning Centers Led development and operations of FUTUREKIDS Computer Learning Centers for a, Fourth Wave, Inc. (a PEJUS subsidiary). Project involved leasing and supervising build out of retail center space; selecting, hiring/training managers, marketing, sales, as well than successful grant-writing for public and private schools seeking technology assistance. Directly managed this $450K retail business unit during early operations. 07.1993 - 06.1995 PEJUS: Growth Project II Development of comprehensive mental health center and vocational training workshops in three separate locations. Activities included facility design and construction, new curriculum development, staff selection/training, and generating new funding source (via change in public policy). Increased annual revenues $2.3M. 07.1989 - 02.1992 PEJUS: Growth Project I Simultaneous development of new residential and therapeutic facilities in three separate theaters of operation. Expanded operations from $1M annually (35 employees) to $6.5M (150 employees) across 20 month period. Activities included construction, purchase, and lease of residential & commercial properties; hiring and training new professional and other staff; development of therapeutic systems and plans for persons served; substantial fund development; and significant change management during and after project. Florida expansion necessitated creation and management of non-profit agency.

 OTHER EXPERIENCE
I have been engaged in work that supports people in need most of my life. When I entered college some decades ago, my intended path involved degrees in religion and a career in ministry. Once enrolled in college, I was quickly caught up in the social protests characterizing that era. During this time, I began to feel that I might be a more useful helpmate for issues of social justice through other means, i.e. lawyer for the abused and downtrodden. I hustled through undergraduate and graduate school, accompanying my studies with work among folks with disabilities or other challenges. When I graduated, I went to work for a city human rights agency entered private law practice in 1980. In both settings my practice became focused on civil rights matters usually on behalf of persons claiming to have been wronged because of their race, gender, age, ethnicity, disability, protected speech, or similar characteristics. In 1987, my career took a sudden turn. Two years earlier my mother started a business providing residential supports for persons who were mentally challenged. That business grew quicklyfrom one home in late 1985 to six homes in mid-1987. Rapid growth took a toll on Momshe said time off to recoup was needed. Offering to relocate my practice adjacent to the companys new office, I agreed to do some light bookkeeping while Mom was away. She left town and did not return for more than two years. She retired! It took no great insight to recognize I had a new calling: steward to my parents financial interests and the dream on which they were based. As noted above, I served as the company's COO with principal responsibility for entrepreneurial, operational, financial, and strategic matters. As shopkeeper-in-chief I performed every business taskfrom redefining and energizing the dream to cleaning the restrooms in our many administrative offices. While much reward flowed from being witness to and a facilitator of the agencys dynamic evolution, a growing wish for a different approach to my life and vocation crept into my daily musings. After a period of deep reflection, I again heard the call for a different vocation. Fall 2001, I returned to graduate school full time. I continued to serve full time as COO also. Though juggling these two obligations pushed me toward the outer limits of my multi-tasking finesse, I kept my head above water and, even, managed to complete my seminary education a semester early. That happened not because I am some super person, something else kept me sane, motivated, and energized. Upon graduation I was ordained through the United Church of Christ where I have served as part time pastor for three mission focused congregations (detailed below). That service means three things when thinking about my fitness for a particular role: (1) my ability to multi-task across and within careers makes me especially fit for dynamic, fast- paced, and frequently changing contexts; (2) my familiarity with and ability to work within diverse cultures and to identify with people regardless of circumstance defies simple categorizationI am at home in almost every context; and (3) my disposition toward life's possibilities and challenges reflects a can do attitude animated by a willingness to push myself (and encourage) to reach beyond my narrow interests on behalf of goals seemingly bigger than life itself. These attributes make easy putting heart and soul to work that makes a difference in other people's lives. My knowledge about and ability to respond to persons in need spans a broad range of social assistance and support efforts. At a clinical level, I am well steeped in the many challenges, personal and otherwise, affecting individuals and families. In a broader sense, I attuned to and comfortable working with persons for all walks of life across culture, circumstance, context, and character. My passion for supporting persons in need runs deep and extends well beyond my experience to date. Fort Wayne, IN 2006-2011 FAITH UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST Senior Pastor (PT) n Suburban renewing congregation with active food bank ministry.

PEOPLES CHURCH OF CHICAGO Chicago, IL Senior Pastor (PT) 2005-2006 n Mission church in Uptown Chicago with extensive program ministry involving food and shelter for persons who were homeless. Religiously, racially, and ethnically diverse congregation. n Successfully pursued denominational grants and private donations for extensive capital renovation, mission programs, and innovative church growth. FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH Interim Pastor (PT) n Urban church hosting head start programs and operating soup kitchen. Elkhart, IN 2003-2004