James A. Kent

CREATIVE ENDEAVORS

My work has been distinguished by the creation of concepts out of the geographic environment within which issues exist. Rather than applying external solutions, internal processes are sought through the participation of the people. This is generally termed the practice of Ethnomethod-ology through the application of applied anthropology processes. My trademarked processes are: The Discovery Process and the Kent Issue Management System. Some of the changes in society that have occurred as a result of this approach are as follows:

From 1965 to 1969 worked with pediatricians and the University of Colorado to create the Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Program. Pediatric Nurse Practitioners are now an integral part of national and international health delivery systems.
Created over 40 new careers during the War on Poverty and worked with 300 institutions of higher education to develop Associate of Arts accrediting programs for career pathways to empower people to change their lives from poverty to participation.
Participated in the development of experiential based higher education programs for active professionals who did not want to leave their careers to earn B.A., M.A., or PhD degrees. The Antioch program and Union Graduate Consortium are two of the best known.
Assisted in creating the concept of alternative schools within public school systems. The Open Living School in Jefferson County, Colorado was one of the first such schools. It was begun in 1969 and still exists today. Charter schools are a spin off of these early experiments.
Formed a major theory called The Discovery Process™, based on experiential learning using one's own environment as the core unit of growth. It distinguishes the informal systems from the formal systems of community. This process has been used throughout the globe with governments, corporations, communities, and citizens to bring about change while maintaining the integrity of both internal and external culture.
Introduced Socially Responsive management to the United States Forest Service between 1976 and 1981. This program won me the 75th Anniversary Gifford Pinchot Award for outstanding service by a citizen to the field of natural resource management.
In 1971 pioneered a social impact management model for the application of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969. The first application of this model was the Meadow Mountain Environmental Assessment (Beaver Creek Ski Area). The process of issue management and citizen involvement was so successful that the Beaver Creek Ski Area was approved at the Environmental Assessment level and never went to an Environmental Impact Statement. The key to this success was to use Section 101 of NEPA to scope the issues in the informal systems, resolve the emerging issues with citizen participation, and mitigate the remaining few unresolved issues.
In order to address large-scale system change, the Kent Issue Management System™ was introduced in a major project in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1979. The system is designed to find issues at the emerging level, involve the citizens in solving the issues, and answer the questions: what can citizens do for themselves?; what can government facilitate and turn over to the citizens?; and, what does government have to regulate? This system, sponsored by the City and County of Honolulu, served the island of O'ahu with a population base of 850,000 people.
Pioneered in Basalt, Colorado a Social Capital approach to town governance. Basalt is recognized nationally as the only town that manages from a Social Capital process rather than from restrictive regulations.

CONCEPTS AND PRODUCTS RESULTING FROM THE CREATIVE ENDEAVORS

Human Geographic Mapping, a process in which cultural boundaries of social systems are mapped and become the primary planning and action unit for managing change
In 1998 the Bureau of Land Management licensed our Human Geographic Issue Management System to digitize maps covering the western United States in a five year Cooperative Agreement.
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) development to include human geographic mapping and the Kent Issue Management System in a project conducted in Washoe County, Nevada between 1991 and 1993.
Defining and applying the concept of Cultural Attachment to Place as a critical ecological consideration to understand the management of intrusion as a change process within a community.
Created the concept of Bio-Social Ecosystems, which introduced social ecology as an equal partner with the physical ecosystem.
Developed a process with southwest Native Americans to mitigate depletable oil and coal reserve losses through discussions and agreements with the extractive companies. The companies agreed to replace the non-renewable resources with funding and support for renewable resources. This led to the development of the concept of diversity being key to the future permanence and well-being of the people.