About The Author

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Gilbert Steil, a backwards synopsis

Gil Steil lives in Ryegate, Vermont (where the photo above was taken) with his wife Cynthia, an artist. He has served nine years on the Board of the Vermont Humanities Council and six years on the Board of the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum. He sings in the North Country Chorus.

In Boston in 1993 he founded Gil Steil Associates, a consulting firm devoted to strategic planning and change by working with the whole system defined by an organization and its key stakeholders (or a community and its key stakeholders). The very first project of Gil Steil Associates was an Education Summit Meeting for the State of Maine with every county of Maine sending a delegation of eight people – about 400 people in all. The Summit was filmed by Maine Public Television and later broadcast in part. This was all the publicity needed for the next twenty five years. Now headquartered in northern Vermont, Gil Steil Associates has served clients in the United States, the Netherlands, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Malawi, and Canada.

Growth is not a goal of Gil Steil Associates; quality of work is the goal, along with refining the firm’s understanding of the collaboration response. While working internationally, Gil was able to test methods for whole system planning in many cultures around the world. For more information on Gil Steil Associates, see www.gilsteil.com.

Prior to founding Gil Steil Associates, Gil was an internal management consultant for Digital Equipment Corporation, where, as the company foundered, he sought methods for involving large numbers of people simultaneously in organizational change.

From 1974 until 1990 Gil evolved from software engineer to a senior engineering executive at Digital.

While working for Digital, Gil was an adjunct faculty member of what is now Rivier University, where he taught Organization Development, and Group Dynamics. On a speaking tour of China, Gil and his colleague Ai-Li Chin were named Honorary Professors of the Nanjing Technological Institute.

Before Digital, Gil was a software engineer for IBM, Mitre, Honeywell, and Telefile Computer Corporation.

Gil received his Masters Degree in Organization Development from American University in 1983. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from Case Institute of Technology (now Case Western Reserve).

Gil grew up in urban and suburban Baltimore, Maryland. He acquired his novice amateur radio license when he was twelve, his general class license when he was 13.

From age zero to seven he was fortunate to live in a household that included both parents and both maternal grandparents.