Country Liaisons for the Americas

Barbara (Sunrise Beginnings), living in Phoenix, Arizona. Barbara is an expert in leadership, retirement readiness, life options, and how to build a life of significance. Atkins has written a book, rightly called 70 is the New 40. In her chapter called Discover Your Power!, Atkins describes a transition all people go through: As a person celebrates age forty and beyond, something mystical and magical happens. How we feel life should be measured begins to take a different form. There is an awakening of the self, and our individual independence becomes profoundly important. …Internally, the psyche takes on a new maturity, and it only gets better and more positive with age.

Gustavo works and lives in Sao Paolo as an executive coach, writer, management & organizational development consultant and workshop conductor. He founded his own consultancy, Sistema Boog de Consultoria, in 1983. His focus is on leadership, teamwork and communication. And his forte is integrating the human dimension with business results. He is a member of Sage-ing International and a leading light in the Open University of the Third Age that meets at Sao Paolo University.

“I live and work in Buenos Aires where I qualified as a clinical psychologist at the University of Buenos Aires. Throughout my life I have worked to develop my inner freedom and help my patients do the same. Women have always had to fight to carve out their rightful place in society. In the same way, ageing positively, as a new social phenomenon needs to be recognized for all its potential. It gives us the opportunity to live out our real values: respect, solidarity, joy, and meaningful occupation by developing multiple interests. I want to contribute to bringing about this. For the last three years I have been blogging about the many aspects of this subject as I myself have moved into this space at Reflexiones de una mujer de 60.

Carol has been trained by and has a long-standing affiliation with the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA). She has a certification and a 20-year history with the coaching program “Success Unlimited Network – SUN”. Her skills include facilitation, coaching, program development and training. She lives and works in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA where she runs her own coaching practice. During more than three decades, she has helped countless numbers of private and business clients envision and reach their goals.

is co-founder of ABC Connects, a US and South Africa education not-for-profit corporation working to strengthen schools and build communities. She also co-founded (1991) SOLUTIONS for Information & Management Services, a firm dedicated to helping teams and groups improve their performance. Carol has been an adjunct and visiting professor at Pace University’s Lubin School of Business since 1991. She is a faculty member in the Executive MBA program and has also been a visiting professor at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business in South Africa.

Cullen T. Hayashida, PhD, is the founder and former director of the Kupuna (Elder) Education Center at Hawaii’s Kapi‘olani Community College, where he developed curricula for both family caregivers and healthcare professionals. He presently serves as a program consultant and advisor to develop and analyze the effectiveness of St. Francis Healthcare System’s developing commitment to eldercare known as the Kupuna Village programs. He is also the Senior Advisor to Kupuna Monitoring Systems, a home telehealth company. He has been involved with developing elder care service development projects in the hospital, nursing home, case management, home health care and the community college settings and has provided technical assistance to other organizations locally, nationally and in East Asia. He has developed active ageing programs at Kapi‘olani Community College, on Kupuna Connections TV series, and is one of founding members and leader of the Active Ageing Consortium Asia Pacific (ACAP). 

Gillian Leithman, PhD,  has spent the past 15 years studying the ageing workforce, retirement and knowledge transfer and management. She is passionate about helping mature workers prepare for life after work, if they choose to retire! Her company, rewire to retire, delivers seminars and workshops to employees nearing retirement. Her work focuses on the socio-emotional components of retirement planning to help people plan for a dynamic third age. When she is not facilitating seminars, she teaches at the John Molson School of Business in Montreal, Quebec.

Carole-Lynne is the founder (1998) and Director of the Creative Arts/Integrative Therapies in Health Care Research Group (www.cait.fr.nf) and Editor-in-Chief of an online, open access peer reviewed journal, the International Journal of Nursing Student Scholarship. She is on a long-term sabbatical, her term for retirement, and carries on tireless work researching, informing, mentoring and advocating the potential of music and related creative arts for families experiencing chronic illness.

An independent researcher/writer and entrepreneur based in Panama, Ilene  has spent close to 10 years developing a company named Traveling4Health & Retirement.  She is focused on interviewing primarily Baby Boomers and industry-specific experts.  Based on over 800 documented interviews, she published How to Plan a Successful Medical Tourism Trip (Amazon).  She is also the exclusive medical travel contributor to the book 65 Things To Do When You Retire by Mark Evan Chimsky and a contributing reviewer of Saving Private Healthcare by Michael Kalthoff. A former newspaper columnist, she hosts a weekly radio show on the Overseas Radio Network. Currently, she is content editor on the Botched No More Campaign of IMTCC and a contract writer for Live and Invest Overseas.

Gabriel, a psychologist and video specialist, is fascinated by the unfolding and rapid adaptation of society to the ever-growing number of dynamic seniors. His permanent home base is Rio de Janeiro but he sees himself as a citizen of the world curious to learn from what’s happening elsewhere. At present he’s in Paris doing a specialized course on professional autonomy and resilience. “I looked far and wide to find a course that would take me further in my studies and found the University of Metz that offered what I was looking for.” He represents Ageing2.0 in Brazil and has extensive contacts in the field. “What I like most is exploring and exploiting the extraordinary resources the digital world offers us and creating programs and workshops to bring out the best in people stimulate their cognitive capacities.”

Kathie has a MS degree in Gerontology and over twenty years experience in the non-profit sector. She works and resides in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her education and training stoked her passion for bringing together progressive, creative thinkers in facilitating enhanced life quality. She has served on a variety of Boards that shaped policy and advanced education at state, provincial and local levels. Kathie has served as consultant for age-friendly community program development, and has coordinated regional conferences and expos. She directed the 25th and 26th annual 50+expo of Nova Scotia, and currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Nova Scotia 55+ Games. Kathie also serves as founder and CEO of the new social enterprise she has launched, Chautauqua Education and Event Promotions, Inc., promoting intergenerational awareness and engagement for the North Atlantic Region. Kathie enjoys volunteering for community theater groups.

Residing in Minnesota, Pat  is a champion for conscious, creative aging. She helps people uncover the brilliance in their bodies, express their creativity, and connect with their spiritual essence—so they can live as a creative force, with an unbridled sense of freedom until their dying breath.

In addition to holding master’s degrees in creative writing and human development, Pat has studied and taught embodied awareness practices for almost 20 years and is a certified Essential Motion Leader. She was a co-founder and coordinator of the Minnesota Creative Arts and Aging Network, coordinated arts learning programs in senior living communities, and has been active in the Vital Aging Network (VAN) started by Jan Hively. In 2019, she became VAN’s coordinator for its Aging with Gusto program, which combats ageism through supporting the reflective, positive shaping of one’s older years.

Pat has given hundreds of keynotes and workshop across the United States on aging, caregiving, and the arts. She gave two presentations at the 2018 Sage-ing International Conference, and in 2019 delivered a TED talk titled “Your Aging Body Is a Great Read.” Pat’s 2019 webinar for Sage-ing International is called “The Transforming Power of Your Body.” Her eight books include Daily Comforts for Caregivers and Body Odyssey: Lessons from the Bones and Belly. Pat is also a personal writing coach and book editor, and she teaches writing in senior living communities. 

Pat is the founder and former Director of the Centre for Elder Research, a research Centre of Excellence at Sheridan College in Ontario. The Centre enables researchers to go from “lab to life”® with its consumer driven focus and its emphasis on knowledge translation. With many years of experience in post-secondary education, social work and applied research, Pat has a proven track record of bringing innovative projects to fruition. Her expertise and research interests are broad and include creative aging, lifelong learning, technology to enhance active aging, social inclusion, promoting positive images of aging, supporting entrepreneurs 60+, and the health and well-being benefits of engagement in the arts.

Pat left Sheridan at the end of 2017 to establish a company called Kaleidoscope Consulting. Through Kaleidoscope, her passion is to continue to pursue many of these same interests with an emphasis on information sharing and knowledge translation.

With three decades of experience in the public and private sectors, Helen’s extensive career in education has always involved helping others maximize their potential – a passion she brings to her latest endeavour, The Top 60 Over 60. As an advisor and consultant since 2007, Helen facilitates retreats and delivers seminars and workshops that are rooted in research and in leadership practice; she brings an international and versatile perspective to her projects. The Canadian Board Diversity Council selected Helen as a Diversity 50 winner in 2014. Helen is an active volunteer locally, nationally and internationally, including: Past Chair of the Jane Goodall Institute of Canada; a former President of the Ontario Principals’ Council; Executive member of the International Women’s Forum, Ottawa. In her spare time, she serves as a mentor and life coach to youth and new immigrants.

Kim is a ‘recovered’ therapist who had a private practice for 23 years. She retired from her practice in the fall of 2009 and hasn’t looked back. Currently, Kim works with ‘women after 50’ to build a financially self-sufficient on-line coaching business. This allows them to give back to those they care about, leverage their expertise and experiences and serve essentially as their own retirement plan.All you need is a phone and a computer to get started!

Margaret inspires and enables organizations to improve their impact in serving older adults. Margaret believes ageing is boundary-less, and that any older adult can and will have a happier tomorrow – with the right support. Margaret is skilled in taking a systemic view of an organization’s needs or challenges, and working with a cross-functional team to create a plan for action. Her award winning career with a Fortune 500 company honed her craft in organizational development, especially in the areas of strategic planning, program management, capacity building, leadership, and sales. This deep experience, along with her Executive MBA and Gerontology Post Baccalaureate Diploma, gives wings to the older adult well-being movement. Her current projects include telling older adult storytelling and founding a non-profit to serve older adults.

Silvia is an enthusiastic innovator and systems thinker. Her concept is a life-sustaining, inclusive “Economía Amable”, a people-and-nature-friendly-economy, which she spreads through her books, art-science exhibitions, and her new YouTube channel. Through “The World of Navis Utopia,” she spreads news about a world of possibilities, in which she sees the Pass It On community to be at the cutting edge.