Talks, stories, and music from different seasons of my life.
Some of these recordings are recent; others have been preserved from years ago. The older ones may look softer on a large screen, but I am grateful to be able to share them.
Leadership in practice
What I learned while leading in the marketplace
These talks come from my years at Colorado Springs Utilities. They reflect on the history we inherited, the meaning of success, the choices before us, and who people need us to be when the way ahead is uncertain.
For many years, I offered this talk as part of the welcome for every new employee at Colorado Springs Utilities. I also presented it on college campuses and in churches. The talk grew from biographies I had read, conversations with others, and years of observing people in many parts of life. It presents seven practices that can help us live out a definition of success that is worth carrying through life.
In 2009, during a time of deep economic uncertainty, I spoke with leaders at Colorado Springs Utilities about the challenges in front of us and the choices we needed to make. Much of the presentation deals with the practical realities we were facing. Near the end, however, I turned to a different question: Who do our people need us to be? The lighthouse became the picture—a leader who gives light, helps people find their bearings, warns of danger, and remains steady in the storm. This was the first time I shared the idea that later grew into my book, Lighthouse Leadership.
An archival KKTV recording from one of the public briefings held during the Waldo Canyon Fire. It offers a brief look at community leaders working together to provide clear information and steady direction during a rapidly changing emergency.
If you enjoy history—or have ever wondered how water, electricity, natural gas, and wastewater service quietly shape a community—this presentation follows nearly 150 years of Colorado Springs history. I begin with General Palmer’s vision in 1871 and follow the people and decisions that helped build the city and its four-service utility. Later in the presentation, I turn to the responsibility of leadership: learning from those who came before us and preparing well for those who will follow. My research behind this presentation became the motivation and foundation for my now out-of-print book, It’s How We’re All Connected: The Story of Colorado Springs Utilities.
Culture and community
How we treat one another shapes the culture we share
Culture is formed in the ordinary ways we treat people. These talks move from honor and safety at work to the kind of community in which people are known and helped to grow.
Using stories of leaders from history, this talk asks what honor looks like when it is practiced in everyday life. Honor shapes how we see people, use authority, and treat one another when we disagree. The presentation became the basis for a two-year program to develop Honor in Action throughout Colorado Springs Utilities.
Two years after our first Culture of Honor conversation, I returned to ask how honor becomes something people actually experience rather than a word on a wall. The presentation draws from the courage of America’s founders and from what nearly 1,800 people taught us through Honor in Action. It looks at the everyday choices that allow honor to take root in an organization and become part of the way people treat one another.
In 2010, I shared this conversation with the top seventy leaders at Colorado Springs Utilities. We had made real progress in safety, but several near misses reminded us that rules and statistics could take us only so far. Using stories from history and experiences within our own organization, I asked what it would take for safety to move from compliance to personal commitment. The conversation reaches beyond safety to the responsibility leaders carry for the culture they create and the people who depend on them.
I shared this message while serving as the Community Group Director for The Road Church in Colorado Springs. You will hear real testimonies about why we were never meant to follow Jesus alone. We need people who know us, encourage us, tell us the truth when necessary, and stay with us as we continue to grow.
I shared this message at a Plumbline Ministries gathering. It begins with Israel’s bondage in Egypt and the night God told each family to place the blood of a lamb on its doorposts. From there, I look at the Passover meal and the way Jesus used the bread and cup at the Last Supper. The message follows the story of remembrance and deliverance into the new covenant He offered through His own life.
After many years of following Jesus and helping others, I began asking a difficult question: Why can we know so much about God and still struggle to change? I came to believe that the missing link was intimacy with God—the quiet place where we stop striving, come honestly before Him, and learn to be with Him. This talk grew out of that part of my own journey.
PhiladelphiaRadioDigitized from Jerry's surviving copy
The story behind the album
We loved Jesus. We loved music. We wanted to put the two together.
Philadelphia began in 1980 as Calvary Chapel Outreach Band Number One. Al Pittman, our lead singer, was a pastor on staff at Calvary Chapel in Colorado Springs, and I was leading worship there. We were a group of young people who loved Jesus and loved music. We did not really know what we were doing. We simply wanted to make music and share our faith.
The group remained together for nearly four years, playing wherever we could—churches, parks, prisons, auditoriums, and other community settings. Al wrote most of our songs. I composed the music for “Lover of My Soul,” with lyrics by Al, and Jim Westbay wrote the instrumental “Autumn Flurry.” Norma Pittman sang the solo on “Make Me.”
We recorded Radio in a modest eight-track studio in Denver that was partly owned by Jim. A band our size probably needed a twenty-four-track studio and far better equipment, but none of us had much money. We simply wanted to preserve the music we had created, and this was the way we could do it.
During the recording, I began experiencing the hand pain that would make playing keyboards difficult for much of the rest of my life. “Where Will You Be” was the final song we recorded. As I played the Fender Rhodes in the studio, the pain was so severe that I was not certain I could finish the song.
Very few physical copies of Radio still exist. Thankfully, I had my copy digitized about fifteen years ago. What you can hear here is that preserved recording—music copyrighted more than forty years ago and now shared freely with anyone who would like to listen.
Philadelphia · Radio
Listen to the album.
Choose a song below. Each track may be downloaded and shared freely for personal, noncommercial use. Permission to share
