Steve retired as a partner at Arnold & Porter, an international law firm, after 32 years of law practice. He represented non-profits, private and public companies, and investors in a wide variety of areas, including corporate governance, public/private partnerships and licensing. Steve was nationally recognized for many years as a leading expert in his field.

Steve’s work often involved public policy issues, which led him to retire early to pursue public private partnership work in youth mentoring and career development.

He has been involved in youth mentoring since he was a teenager running a summer youth sailing program, and has been active for decades in youth ministry. Steve is a mentor and volunteers for organizations such as icouldbe, Undaunted Futures and Harraseeket.

Steve has a BA from Dartmouth College and a JD from Cornell Law School.

Leslie is Harraseeket’s Project Director and is responsible for managing and executing curriculum design and career guidance for our workshops and career programs.

The co-founder of Career Exploration Company, Leslie is a Certified Professional Coach (CPC) specializing in coaching teens and young adults in discovering their passion and learning practical skills for navigating their way to fulfilling work.

Leslie has an MBA from American University and a BS in Communications from Boston University and began her career working on management consulting contracts for the Federal Government.

Peter was for many years an Instructor in Religion at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, NH. One of the courses Peter taught was a course called “Imagining Your Future,” which inspired the development of Harraseeket’s Imagining Your Future program.

Peter, an Episcopal priest who once considered becoming a physician, backed into the study of religion when he was required to fulfill a course distribution in religion or philosophy at college. Philosophy scared him, and he knew nothing about religion. Having come from an “unchurched” family, he had never been introduced to the academic study of religion and found this first course fascinating. Deciding to major in the subject while remaining a pre-med, he was accidentally exposed to the praxis of religion by spending a summer working with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in St. Augustine, Florida. His senior year in college brought him into contact with one of the most activist chaplains of that generation, the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr., and the combination of the study of religion in the classroom and the practice of it in social activism led him to decide to go to seminary and into the ministry.

Lou is responsible for supporting the evaluation and assessment of outcomes for students in Harraseeket’s Career Pathways Program. Lou is a labor economist with a national reputation for using large longitudinal databases, site visits, and surveys to examine: (a) ways to increase the college and career readiness of high school and community college students; (b) pathways leading to completion of college programs that boost earnings; (c) the returns to education, training, and support programs; (d) how report cards and other improvements in information available to students can increase college completion and earnings; and (e) how improved performance measurement systems can increase the incentives of educators and service-providers to help students complete programs and boost earnings.

Dr. Jacobson recently examined the effectiveness of a Florida-wide testing and remediation program aimed at helping high school seniors avoid remediation in college and complete high-return programs by boosting their college readiness. Lessons learned from this study were incorporated in Improving College and Career Outcomes of Low-Performing High School Students for the Hamilton Project, which advocated altering performance measures to give more attention to increasing the engagement of low-performing high school students as well as improving their planning and skills for college and careers.

Earlier, Dr. Jacobson directed studies using administrative data covering all 220,000 members of the Florida HS Class of 2000 to analyze how the returns to career-oriented and academic programs at Florida community colleges and high schools vary as a function of students’ choice of courses, credentials earned, academic performance, socio-economic status, and location. These studies were funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the US Department of Education’s (US-DOE’s) National Assessment of Career and Technical Education (NACTE).

Jim is Harraseeket’s lead mentor recruiter, trainer and source of mentor support. Jim has over 20 years of experience in training and professional development for staff and volunteers serving vulnerable populations. He’s also served at-risk youth through national mentoring programs in secular and faith-based communities and has developed innovative methods for successful outcome-oriented and process-based results in the public, nonprofit, and commercial sectors.

Jim served in the National Resource Center for two Federal mentoring programs and on the grant leadership team that established the initial Center for the Advancement of Mentoring in the Department of Justice. He also had the privilege of serving three different AmeriCorps national service programs as a trainer, manager, and program evaluation developer. In recent years, he’s focused on youth mentoring and ministry advancement.

In his earlier career, Jim served in a variety of assignments with the U.S. Air Force for 28 years. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in international relations and an MBA focused on management science.

Katie is a recent graduate of Occidental College with a B.A. in Psychology and is thrilled to combine her love of writing with community outreach! She’s ready to put her big sister skills to use and help others connect with youth so they can build their career paths and sense of self.

In her spare time, you can find Katie exploring other areas of writing, dancing, hitting the gym, and hanging out with her trusty beagle, Pork Chop.

Katie is very excited to be working with Haraseeket and to explore how her skills in journalism can further connect her to those in her hometown.

Ashley is currently a third year student at the University of Virginia majoring in computer science.

She has always loved problem solving and is especially passionate about software development and data science.

In Charlottesville, you can find her playing the clarinet with the Cavalier Marching Band, competing in hackathons, and cheering at basketball games.

Pety is a graduate from Bahcesehir University in Istanbul with a Bachelors in Visual Communication Design.

Growing up, she’s always loved using her creativity as a form of expression whether it’s through art, clothes, design and even makeup! Now as she’s gotten older she gets to still practice the enjoyment of delivering a message through design but this time not only just for herself but for the people around her with a strong message but find it difficult when trying to express it visually.

When the opportunity of Haraseeket came to her she was more than excited to join the team! She loves the idea of creating for a cause that she herself believes is so important and can’t wait to see how far we can all make this grow!

K (yes, just the letter!) has always been curious about community formation, people's stories, and what it takes to create a shared future where everyone has the ability to flourish.

She's spent her time working alongside women coming out of sex trafficking, in a fraternity house, at a brewery, with women who are incarcerated, and most recently as the Director of Partnerships at The People's Supper, working around the country to help people build trust and connection to combat isolation and fragmentation in their communities.

She is delighted by journaling, a good thrift find, her dogs, and her latest scheme (currently: a vending machine that vends local art!) She's so excited to be on board at Harraseeket. 

A favorite childhood story in Lauren’s family is about the time she started a neighborhood basketball team for the kids nearby. She led her friends in making posters, building a roster, getting parents to sign forms (who knows what they said), and organizing a practice schedule…only to realize, not only was she TERRIBLE at basketball, but she also hated playing it. Looking back now, though, this was probably the first glimmer of Lauren’s true strength – which is seizing on to new ideas and breathing life into them, something she enjoys doing with The Harraseeket Foundation in her spare time.

Lauren is both an explorer and a guide in Harraseeket’s Imagining Your Future program, continuously looking for new insights to build a well-rounded life and helping those who come after her recognize and avoid pitfalls that she’s fallen victim to herself while also finding and grabbing hold of passions they might have left behind on their third grade basketball team.

Flynn is a well-known senior specialist in the area of Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainable Development and Futures Studies. He has a unique combination of academic, business and non-profit experience to integrate research and practice into pragmatic learning programs.

He has been a senior executive in both large and small business, been the Director for the high-profile Center for Entrepreneurship at Baylor University and worked extensively with World Vision and other major non-profits.

Since his original work as a futurist at George Washington University during his doctoral program, he has continued to effectively bring an understanding of how current trends create the emerging context for personal and organizational strategies and practices. Flynn is currently Managing Director of Prescient360 Group in the DC area.

Flynn earned his Ph.D. from George Washington University in Strategic Planning and Corporate Social Responsibility and his M.B.A. in International Business from Baylor University. He has taught Entrepreneurship at several major universities and has worked with both start-ups and new initiatives for major corporations. He also teaches a course at GMU called Well-Being in Turbulent Times.

Bill has 40 years’ experience with software, project management and business development. His career covered the growth of computing from simple special purpose machines to the complex but small devices everyone carries around in their pockets these days. His work was there when rockets took payloads to geosynchronous orbits, when we first landed on Mars, when satellite based X-Ray telescopes validated Einstein's equations, and when nationwide identity management systems began to simplify policing.

Along the way, he learned how to get large groups of people to work together effectively. Part of the process was developing countless technical, logistical, management and cost proposals and plans, training others in how to produce these products and then converting those plans into real systems in a controlled process visible to all interested parties. Lately, he has turned these skills and training to developing management plans and grant proposals that support the greater good for the community.

Karly is thrilled to be a part of Harraseeket! Karly is a "townie" in Old Town Manassas. She walks weekly to the local train station, coffee shops, playground and farmers market with her two year old, Hadley Grace. They know every barista in town by name. 

Karly has spent the last ten years working with women who are coming out of sex trafficking in Australia, Cambodia and Thailand, bringing that same mission to the heart of DC. She is a licensed foster mama and works for a local foster care nonprofit helping to deliver care packages to foster families ‘ homes when new placements arrive. 

A few years ago, Karly led Young Life at Westfield High School and tangibly experienced the importance of investing in high schoolers’ lives. Karly will be assisting with our development as we grow and launch new programs.