Dr. Trickett is a teaching and counseling elder in the United Methodist Church, and has done significant work in counseling as a student of persons such as Harville Hendrix and David Switzer. In 1990, he formed The Jefferson Circle, which focuses on the reconnection of people with purpose at the individual, organizational, and societal levels. This involves strategic discernment, assessment of underlying values and commitments people bring to life and their daily contexts, and often involves conflict transformation and the development of communities of shared commitment. His abiding interest is to ensure that good ideas and aspirations can be lived out; his work is in the application of theories which he has helped to develop or refine. David Trickett received a BA in intellectual and social history (Emory, LSU), as well as a MTheol and PhD (from Southern Methodist University). He has received certification in strategic leadership and management from a hybrid program of the executive MBA and institute for nonprofit management run by faculty of Columbia University. He has done postgraduate work at Oxford and Harvard, and postdoctoral study at Vanderbilt and Yale. He has worked in retail management (with Neiman Marcus), as a national park ranger (at Yellowstone National Park), and has taught in major research universities and liberal arts colleges.