Lead Gerontologist

National University of Natural Medicine

Founder of the Geezer Gallery and Age Wise Institute

Amy Henderson, MA is the founder of The Geezer Gallery, and she has earned degrees in Interior Design, Business and Leadership, and Interdisciplinary Studies concentrating in Gerontology. She has a passion for championing senior citizens in the arts as well as creating a variety of art therapy curriculums which in turn lead to increased brain health, decreased depression, and improved social connections.
She has established partnerships with Actors Repertory Theatre, OHSU, and OMSI as well as utilizing existing populations at Rose Schnitzer Towers, Station Place Tower, REACH, Mary’s Woods and others to explore these therapeutic interventions. A strong network of Sustainability Sponsors and Community Partners provide the wheels of exposure TGG strives to provide in this rich and culturally aware local environment.

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President/CEO of Bloom Anew

Since 1983, Jay C. Bloom has been providing executive and personal coaching to leaders, managers, and individuals in the private, philanthropic, and governmental sectors who are experiencing a transition in their lives or desiring to strengthen their professional skills and capabilities. Jay also provides leadership and management consultation with organizations that are undergoing transitions with a special expertise in helping them develop effective collaborations and partnerships. He has been described as a social entrepreneur stimulating change not only for individuals and organizations but for communities as well.
Jay is passionately promoting his concept of “returnment,” a term he created for aging boomers as an alternative to retirement. Returnment encourages older adults to spend their later years using their skills, resources, and knowledge to benefit the greater good. He’s also assisting organizations locally and nationally in finding ways to more effectively utilize this growing new resource. His recent article “ Experience Making a Difference: the Secrets of Working Effectively in the Social Sector” contains a number of useful insights for those thinking of working and volunteering in the social sector.
Jay recently served for the second time as interim President/CEO of United Way of Columbia-Willamette for ten months and helped raise the most dollars ever in this United Way’s history up to that point. He also served in that role for seven months in 2008 and 2011.
Jay launched a new initiative in Honolulu titled KupunaWork through Kapiolani Community College’s Kupuna Education Center, which focused on assisting older adults explore opportunities for meaningful engagement in their later years. He also recently worked as a sustainability consultant with the State of Hawaii Executive Office on Aging and the statewide Healthy Aging partnership to further embed evidenced based health promotion and disease prevention programs throughout the four counties of Hawaii.
Jay served as the director of the innovative Task Force on Vital Aging sponsored by then Multnomah County Chair Ted Wheeler in Portland, Oregon. The task force researched best practices for employing and civically engaging older adults and completed a report in March 2008.
Prior to that Jay served for 13 years as President/CEO of Morrison Child and Family Services, a $22 million nonprofit organization that annually serves more than 5,000 children, youth and their families throughout Oregon and Washington and earlier served as a director of nonprofit organizations in Connecticut and Massachusetts for 18 years.
Jay has undergraduate and graduate degrees in psychology and has attended executive management programs at Yale and Harvard Universities. He has lectured at a number of colleges and universities in graduate and undergraduate departments of business, social work, nonprofit management and psychology, including: Connecticut College; University of Connecticut; University of Portland; Reed College; Portland State University; Lewis and Clark College and has also presented at numerous professional conferences.
Jay currently serves on the Board of Directors of Children’s Trust Fund of Oregon and Wisdom of the Elders. He is also on the advisory committees of Portland State University’s Age Friendly City initiative, and School of Social Work, MotiveSpace and Villages NW. He recently served on the boards of Bridge Meadows, Elders in Action, Children First for Oregon and the Oregon Gerontological Association. He was the founding chair of the Leadership Council of Life by Design Northwest and the founding co chair of the Nonprofit Association of Oregon. He also served as a member of the City and County of Honolulu Committee on Aging.
Jay is a firm believer that unless you are engaged in your later years you are just dying longer not living longer. Jay works tirelessly promoting intergenerational interdependence and intergenerational equity and believes in building a State and community for all ages.

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Co-Founder and President of MINDRAMP CONSULTING

Portland Community College Gerontology Instructor

Roger Anunsen is a brain health educator and program consultant based in Oregon where he teaches college five gerontology courses in Portland, including The Aging Mind, Applied Legal & Policy Issues in Aging and Cognitive Activity Design.

Roger has been working in the field of memory and aging since 2001 and is a founder and co-principal in MINDRAMP Consulting that provides brain health and wellness events, staff training programs and educational courses. His educational method was developed over the past decade of hands-on experience teaching older adults and health care professionals how to apply the latest breakthroughs from neuroscience. Roger presented the MINDRAMP Method© at the First Global Conference on Ageing at the University of Oxford and, with his MINDRAMP partner Michael C. Patterson who is now based in Los Angeles, conducted a sold-out seven-hour brain health seminar at the Smithsonian Institution.

Anunsen and Patterson have co-authored books including their textbooks Strong Brains, Sharp Minds (2015), Cognitive Activity Design (2015) and Better Brains by Design: (2016)

For more information visit www.mindramp.org

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“Be All That You Can Be” is an old Army slogan that epitomizes what I want for anyone reading this message, but especially for adults venturing forward, trying to find a new career/job/purpose, who

• -Have existing experiences (as all adults do) and need to figure out how to transition into a new field,
• -ŸHaven’t forayed into the job market for a while and need to get up to speed about the process, or
• -Are squished between the old assumptions about what aging meant and what the new realities are for them when it comes to needing work and wanting a career . . .

For these adults, I want to help them recareer. In time with that, I want to help our society, and individuals within it, redefine what it means to be an adult on the better side of 50.

Experience

– Gerontology Special Project Coordinator – Portland Community College (PCC) Gerontology Program
– Co-Author Managing YOUR Career in Aging, text for Gerontology Program’s Career Management Courses
– Co-Developer of the Gerontology D2L ePortfolio and Homeroom
– Developer and writer on the ELA(Encore Learner Adaptation) website and curriculum
– Peer Mentor / Teaching Assistant – PCC Gerontology Program
– ReCareer Support and Owner – reVision Careers, Beaverton
– Instructor: Beginning Clay Handbuilding for Ages 55 and Better – Multnomah Arts Center, Portland
– Job Developer – Reigel Vocational Consultation, Portland
– Product Manager / Project Manager / Customer Service / Sales Service – DiversiForm, Inc., a Division of Reynolds and Reynolds, Beaverton

Education

– PCC Sylvania Portland OR (2009)
Gerontology and Assistant Activity Director. Career Pathway Certificates
– Lewis & Clark College, Portland, OR (1993)
Master of Arts in Teaching: Liberal Studies.
– Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA (1983)
Bachelor of Arts: English and Dramatic Arts.

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Portland Community College Full-time Gerontology Instructor

Mike Faber has an extensive background in Gerontology. Mike holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Gerontology, an undergraduate Mental Health and Aging Certificate, and a Master of Arts Degree in Sociology specializing in Aging and the Life Course.

Mike worked with older adults, their families and caregivers, within West Michigan for the last 25 years, in a wide variety of roles including case coordination and support for frail homebound elderly, long-term care advocacy, and as a Dementia specialist, as well as an educational gerontologist and program administrator at Grand Rapids Community College (GRCC). In his last position, Mike was instrumental in fund development, programming, strategic direction, and daily operations of an Older Learner Center serving older adults, their families and caregivers, aging service professionals, and baby boomers. He also coordinated and taught adjunct in a 32 credit Gerontology Certificate Program that he developed at GRCC. In 2015, Mike began his new role as full time Gerontology Instructor at Portland Community College.

Mike has extensive experience in public speaking, radio, television and video production related to Gerontology and aging. He is also the co-author of the textbook Introduction to Aging: A Positive Interdisciplinary Approach, published by Springer Publishing Company in 2014.

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Jackie B. Peterson has worked with small businesses and solopreneurs–including creative and encore entrepreneurs–for over 30 years. She’s an entrepreneur herself, working as a business adviser and CPA. She was honored to be named one of the 100 most powerful women in the Northwest and recently won the Portland Chamber of Commerce’s prestigious President’s Award in recognition of her years of working on behalf of the small business community. In addition to her independent consulting and small business coaching practice, she currently works as a strategic adviser/instructor for the Small Business Development Center of Portland Community College. Her book, Better, Smarter, Richer is currently used as curriculum in many of the center’s classes.

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• Portland Community College Gerontology Faculty Dept Chair, Advisor & Instructor
• PhD in Sociology with some coursework related to aging
• Case Worker, Old Age Assistance
• ADRC of Oregon Advisory Board

How She Became Interested in the Field of Aging

In her previous lives, she worked in the Old Age Assistance Program for the County of San Mateo, California, and taught sociology and directed the Women Studies Department at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she also received her PhD in Sociology. In the fall of 1980, ​s​he traveled around the world while teaching on Semester at Sea – a transformative process that turned her into a “citizen of the world.” Seizing an opportunity to work on an Education for Peace Project bringing together Israelis and Palestinians, ​s​he packed my bags for what she thought would be a year or two working on the project. ​She eventually moved on to direct the Palestine Human Rights Information Center in Jerusalem. ​15 years later, with her mother’s health failing – her family and she returned to her birthplace in Oregon. Soon thereafter, ​s​he was hired by PCC. She taught sociology, before moving full-time into Gerontology.

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