Michael is a theater-maker who has spent 35 years leading process and facilitating conversation around complex public issues across the nation, as well as supporting and training arts, municipal, and non-profit staff in designing effective community programs, convenings, and public engagement work. He’s been a founder and co-leader with three organizations- Hope Is Vital (theatre-based HIV Prevention work in DC and nationwide in the 90s); Sojourn Theatre (ensemble theatre company 1999-2023, Portland, OR and nationwide), and Center for Performance and Civic Practice (artist collective consulting on institutional and system change work nationwide 2012- present). He co-founded/co-led Art-Train, a national technical assistance program with Springboard for the Arts;  he just finished four years as Civic Collaborations Director with One Nation One Project, a national arts and health initiative; he is lead process-designer and facilitation trainer for national Veteran-led bridge-building organization More Perfect Union; and in 2022, he founded Co-Lab for Civic Imagination at the University of Montana, where, as a tenured Professor, he serves as Co-Lab Director and as a University-Wide System Dramaturg/Artist-in-Residence.