ABSTRACT

I was already committed to the research to application connection (RAC) when I moved into my teaching/research career. A decade of work-world and consultive experience left me with numerous unanswered questions that were not being satisfied by more work experience. My skills and interests finally started to surface and I felt challenged to seek out the “whys” and “hows.” This proved to be terribly naive as to the enormity of the task as my doctoral work, teaching, professional work, and research unfolded over the next three decades. Much later, it became apparent that being able to thoughtfully integrate past work with emergent trends and possible future directions was a necessary condition for my research (and personal) progress. That is, past research, professional and personal experience had to be tempered (at times greatly!) with emergent contextual changes serving as the crucible for these experiences. Additionally, the faster and more radical the (organization related) change, the greater the need to take into account the characteristics of these contextual changes (Burack & Torda, 1979). Past and future must be thoughtfully united.