Acknowledgments

Fred’s Acknowledgments

My first and most important acknowledgment is to Pauline Kamen Miller, the person I have been married to and built a family and a home with for the last twenty years. Thank you, Pauline, for the wonderful life we have co-created for ourselves and for enabling me to be fully the person I have needed to be, to be my best self. And, thanks to Kamen Kaleel Miller and Shay Clarice Miller for being such alive, loving, and dynamic children. Thanks for coming into our lives.

Judith H. Katz and I have been business partners since 1985 when Kaleel Jamison died of breast cancer at age 53. Judith is not just a business partner. That role and relationship does not and cannot sustain the ups and downs of working together and running a thriving consulting business for so many years. Judith is my dear friend, trusted advisor, and a pioneer in the area of racism, especially as it relates to whites. Thanks, Judith, for co-authoring this book with me and making one of my dreams come true.

… and we stand on the shoulders of giants who have enabled us to see beyond the valley…

To name a few:

Charles V. Hamilton (a great teacher and role model) and James Farmer (founder of CORE), both professors, and Stokely Carmichael (a.k.a. Kwame Toure), adjunct faculty at Lincoln University, Pennsylvania, in the 1960s when I learned from them about life, being black, and social change.

And other pioneers: Henry Morgan (Polaroid, Boston University, and Ben and Jerry’s), Kaleel Jamison (dear and missed friend, colleague, boss, and “big sister”), Henry Roberts (CEO of Connecticut General Life Insurance Company while I was an employee from 1968 to 1979), Rick Kremer (a partner in “crime”/change at Connecticut General Life Insurance Company), Edie Seashore (a friend, mentor, consultant to KJCG, and great woman), Dick Gregory and Malcolm X. Giants all. Thank you for touching my life and teaching me so much.

Judith’s Acknowledgments

I am deeply indebted to many individuals. First and foremost, I want to thank my parents Ilse and Bill Katz, who raised me with a set of values, vision, and passion about addressing injustice in this world. They helped instill in me an understanding that as a white, Jewish woman I had to play a role for change.

Additionally, I am appreciative and thankful to our clients and internal partners: Barbara Arnold, Capers Brown, June Cohen, Fred DePerez, Keith Earley, Claude Elsen, Dory Gasorek, Danny Grossman, Miles King, Karon Moore, Barbara Patocka, Ron Wesson, Doug West, Clarence Wilson, and Phil Wilson, to name a few, who have been willing to put their faith and trust in me and us and embark on a breakthrough journey. It is through these partnerships that I have been tested and strengthened.

To Bailey Jackson, a dear friend, colleague, and supporter, who is one of the preeminent thinkers on social justice. Bailey has helped shape our concepts and models and has always been willing to share his genius while supporting our work. Thanks.

And to David B. Levine for his insights and always challenging us to be our best.

We wrote this book with the assistance of many people. We will list only a few, and we apologize to those who we have not mentioned.

First, we want to thank all the current and past members of The Kaleel Jamison Consulting Group, Inc. (KJCG). We are privileged, honored, and inspired by our partnership, our many learnings, and your challenges for us and KJCG to be better tomorrow than today. It is a blessing to be leaders and partners with you in the KJCG Business-Village.

This book would not have been possible without the brilliance and hard work of Caryn Cook. Thank you, Caryn, for your dedication and involvement. Your leadership, guidance, and management of this project and us were way above the call of duty. We appreciate your commitment to excellence and always working to raise the bar.

Thanks to the people who assisted us in getting our words and thoughts clear and in writing: Roger Gans, Meredith Maran, Ed Kamen, Carnie Lincoln, and Pauline Kamen Miller. Thanks to Brian Murray for taking our notions of the inclusion breakthrough model and translating it into a visual model for others to understand. Thanks, too, to Diane DuBois for her assistance in supporting us every day of our lives and assisting us in making all the calls and planning the meetings that were necessary to both successfully complete this book and lead KJCG.

Of course, thoughts and concepts are just that, and sharing them in our consulting practice and with friends is communicating to a limited audience. It took someone who cares about diversity and who had a vision of the value of what we had to say to bring this book to life and into the hands of thousands of people. Thank you, Steven Piersanti and the members of Berrett-Koehler for having faith in us and this project.