I was born and raised in Southern California during its glory years (for which I am grateful), and now reside in Laramie, Wyoming, with my wife Cindy, our Australian shepherd, Ollie, and Markie-Mark the cat.
Life Change Coming: In 2027, my wife, Cindy, and I will be retiring and relocating to Western Idaho, where we will have built our retirement home. I will be making some substantial changes in my overall web footprint at that time, including a diminution of presence via email, cell phone access, etc. I will update this page as those changes occur.
I do tweet now and then and may continue to do so after we relocate. You can find me on X (formerly Twitter) under the handle @josephvrussoPHD.
My first career was in business for some 27 years. I had one helluva run for those two and a half decades, and while I was rarely any good at it, I was certainly always the most eager (believe me, the mistakes and terrible decisions made vastly outweighed the good ones).
In 2006, I shifted gears and entered the helping professions as a mental health practitioner (becoming after a while a Life Coach) and, later, as a lecturer at The University of Wyoming.
I have both an MA and a Doctorate (PhD) in the discipline of Educational Psychology.
I also have an essentially worthless MBA, “earned” 30 years after getting a BBA. I say “worthless” because all you really need to know you can learn on-the job as I did, especially from the kinds of leaders and mentors with whom I had the privilege of working (see below).
I try and tell budding business professionals to avoid the now-useless MBAs offered by American universities, and, instead, to focus on a specialty trade of some sort, like welding or plumbing – some sort of really, truly useful trade). Those are “AI-proof.”
Those 27 years in business taught me a lot. I had great mentors – people like:
- Ric Brutocao early in my career at Account-A-Call Corporation
- Louise Martire at Xerox Business Services
- Jerry Kleeman at Vistage International
- Gerry Klein at Brutocao and Klein, Attorneys at Law; and,
- Mike O’Hara and Dan Fowler at Microsoft.
They remain very much on my mind now that I’m closing in on my 70s and entering the last third of my life (my dad lived to almost 90).
With what they, especially Ric, tried to teach me I use to help those coming up behind.
My doctoral dissertation focused on counselor ethics in the social media spaces. You can access that dissertation here: The Effects of Social Media Marketing on Help-Seeking Behavior – ProQuest
I used to blog here in this space. However, with the rising tide of “cancel culture” in the 2010s and 20s, I stopped in August of 2025. My opinions had become catnip for the Woke Left. I didn’t that headache.
Thank you for stopping by.
— Joseph V. Russo