After finishing my Ph.D., I became Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, then Research Scientist at the Battelle Memorial Institute, and finally Professor of Management and Policy at the University of Southern California School of Policy, Planning, and Development. I'm also Clinical Professor at the University of Washington School of Public Health. I have a nation-wide consulting practice in health care, policing policy, and minority issues. I commute between USC campuses in Los Angeles and Sacramento, and live in Seattle.
I've published two books on cancer treatment and survival. My most recent book, Health For All: Making Community Collaboration Work, is based on my experience as a practitioner and evaluator of community organization. I'm now completing a textbook on organization theory.
Berkeley provided me with the tools of the trade: Hal Wilensky, how to write scholarly narrative and grant proposals; Charles Glock, how to do surveys; Art Stinchcombe (by providing opportunity for practice), how to withstand criticism. For life-long perspective, I owe my fellow students: Ann Swidler for the dialectic; Richard Apostle for cool commentary on America; Russ Neuman for appreciation of empirical research; Steve Hart for general genius. The atmosphere of Berkeley in the 60s impressed me with the power of collective behavior over the individual. The outlook through which I see the world today, one of social, economic, and cultural competition, matured at Berkeley.
I believe I have helped bring the sociological perspective to unaccustomed precincts: hospital board and operating rooms; police headquarters; the city council; the business pages of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
Sociology affects my family life. It informs (inflames?) discussions I have with my wife, a psychoanalyst, about the sources of human consciousness. It impacts my children, to whom I am teaching survey research techniques by assigning them jobs in my various projects. It provides my kids with a term they believe expresses the character of this work: "exploitation."