Graduate Stories – 2002

Dick Tryon

Sustaining a fellowship through empowerment

In 1977 Dick founded Community Partners, Inc., a non-profit organization providing support to people with developmental and multiple disabilities in southern Maine. He served as Executive Director for 25 years. Since then he has been developing a private counseling practice focusing on end of life issues.

I’m a former Lutheran minister and I went through a lot of personal exploration, coming to terms with my own spirituality. I think that the most important aspect for me is honoring the light that shines in everybody. I got involved in The Seven Intentions® program to give me the opportunity to revisit my own values: love, truth, simplicity, and service. The Seven Intentions® is acknowledgement and support for what we believe, providing nourishment for what we are doing here at Community Partners.

The pieces just come together. The fact that The Saltwater Institute is attracting people who are interested in sharing their values, and in networking with others, is really important to me personally, as well as organizationally. I revisited my own values and learned not to do it alone, but to get other people involved and make sure everybody is on the same path.

I do a training orientation for new employees every Monday morning. The first thing I do is to explain the corporation’s values. What I experienced personally at the Saltwater program is finding a way to bring The Seven Intentions® into our organizational training models, to help other people get in tune with what is important for them working here. It’s good stuff.

Ownership - bringing it home - is what The Saltwater Institute is doing for people in leadership positions. All of us are defining where we are going and how to get there with our consumers, our staff, and our employees. How often do leaders have an opportunity to sit down with other people under guidance, direction, and a disciplined effort to really say, "How am I doing?" The spiritual and personal elements of the work in The Seven Intentions® program reinforce in me that it is just as important for many other people.

I think it is important for everyone in the organization to know what the core values are and to own them. It is only when people are treated with dignity and respect that they feel valued and this translates throughout the organization. I tell my staff, right up front, that there is no way I can expect them to model respect and dignity with our consumers if they don’t get it from me.

The Saltwater concepts are an invitation to think, to reflect, and to share. I found that my sense of Connecting with Goodness is connecting with those elements that center me in my personal life, work life, and in the world. That is what Tom Chappell is talking about: inviting us to share, to enhance, and to grow together.