Giving Teens a Voice

Credits

Credits and Acknowledgements

Mr. Rod Peeks, Computer Consultant in Birmingham, Alabama, a close personal friend of the project manager for the Teen Think Tank and his former colleague at IBM Corporation, was singularly responsible for recruiting all the participants for the Teen Think Tank on School Violence. He also devoted many hours of otherwise billable time to the project. Included were a number of hours of telephone conversations in planning, strategy, and process development. He provided transportation for two trips totaling more than 400 miles. He has invested a number of hours in editing, rearranging, and writing portions of this report.

Mr. Peeks has long been committed to working with teenagers as an amateur soccer coach, children's choir director, scout leader, and half-time announcer for his son's high school band.  He is also actively but informally involved with recruiting students for his college alma mater, Mississippi State University, from which he earned a BS in Aerospace Engineering in 1970.

Appreciation is given to Dr. Marty Schwartz, Mr. Bob Rentschler, and Dr. Douglas Robbins who contributed much time, effort and support for this project. Without their involvement, the Teen Think Tank project would have been impossible.

Of course, the teenagers deserve the most credit. They did the real work and provided the creative and innovative content of the report. Their commitment, dedication and enthusiasm generated an abundance of emotional energy to drive the project to completion.

Acknowledgments
The organization that provided the use of the meeting facilities, the networked computers, and the GroupSystems software, has asked to remain anonymous. The responsible parties have endorsed and applauded the efforts of all who were involved in any way with the Teen Think Tank project. However, due to extenuating circumstances and business implications, they prefer to avoid any publicity associated with the project.

The project is thankful to Mr. Eddie Dobelstein and his employer, that elects to remain anonymous, for printing the project report.

The project is grateful to Vulcan Materials for providing the binders for the students' reports.

About the Teen Think Tank Project Manager
Brice F. Marsh is a Senior Computer Scientist and an Electronic Meeting System (EMS) Specialist with Computer Sciences Corporation. During the 37+ years of his professional career, he has also served as a high school mathematics teacher; a systems engineer with IBM; a director of information systems for a manufacturer/distributor of food products; and as vice president of a telephone company. Since joining CSC in 1992, he has been instrumental in the introduction and implementation of the first GroupSystems electronic meeting system facility in his company. In 1995, he was responsible for introducing EMS for NASA at Marshall Space Flight Center and he is now leading a team to deploy EMS to other NASA centers.  He has presented white papers about GroupSystems and EMS at eight international conferences and numerous workshops and other sessions. Mr. Marsh also serves as an independent consultant for EMS and in other applications of computer-supported collaboration.
Mr. Marsh is a Certified Professional GroupSystems Facilitator and Instructor; and he is a member of the International Association of Facilitators. He serves on the Industry Advisory Board for the National Science Foundation's Research and Development Program at the University of Arizona and he is a member of the Customer Advisory Council for Ventana Corporation, the producer of the GroupSystems electronic meeting system groupware product. He holds a BS degree from Auburn University.