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Today's Featured Biography

Judi Robinson Neal

After high school graduation, I went to the Church College of Hawaii for a year and majored in music. There wasn't enough money for me to continue, so I dropped out got married to a man who was originally from Connecticut and had two children. We moved back to Connecticut and I have been a homesick Hawaiian girl ever since.

I wanted to continue my education (remember me - they used to call me "the brain." Hubby didn't want an educated woman with a mind of her own, so we got divorced, and I continued onto get my bachelor's in business and then a Ph.D. from Yale in organizational behavior. Don't ask me why. Its hard to explain. But I really think that work is such an important part of our lives and I loved trying to understand how we could bring out the best in our workplaces and could make work more meaningful. Pretty good for a girl who just wanted to get married and have 17 babies!

Before I finished my Ph.D., I began working for Honeywell in Arizona and later worked for another Honeywell facility in Illinois. Later I decided to go into teaching and became a management professor at the University of New Haven.

Like Pam Chilton, I began to get interested in spirituality, only I wanted to understand how it might apply to making work more meaningful and organizations more effective. In 1994 I created the Center for Spirit at Work, which is now at the University of New Haven. www.spiritatwork.com. I have traveled all over the US and to several other countries to give talks about spirituality in the workplace. One of my dreams come true was to visit Japan, and to do some research there on how the Japanese use the concept of "ki" in the workplace. I wasn't there long enough to learn all that I wanted to learn.

But I now am a student of Tai Chi, and I may still come to learn something about this some day.

Music has continued to be an important part of my life. I still play guitar, and even get out my old ukelele once in awhile. I'm trying to teach myself Hawaiian slack key guitar. I get so homesick for the old music. But I have been writing songs for years. (I sang the first song I ever wrote for the talent section of the Miss Kailua contest in 1964). In 1998 I recorded my first CD on my own label, and am now working on a second CD. I don't expect to ever get rich and famous from music, but I love it as much as ever.

I used to go to Hawaii everytime I had enough time and money. But my parents and my brother have all passed on, so I haven't been back in 3 years. But I'm hoping that our class is having a 40th reunion in 2004. I'll be there!

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