Robert H. Schram was born in Newark, NJ in the summer of 1946, the first child of a psychiatrist father and poetic mother. In the mid 1950’s the family moved to Westfield, NJ. Robert and his younger sister Lynne were raised in a laissez-faire manner absent open expressions of love and affection. His parents sporadically expressed their pride in his accomplishments, especially on the soccer and baseball field. He became a semi-professional baseball player and one year was the league’s Batting Champion and Most Valuable Player. The author spent many hours alone in his room, ruminating and entertaining himself, disconnected from his feelings.
As the class clown through high school and college, he treasured the joy of laughter, a gift he inherited from his mother. He graduated college with a BA in Political Science, a MA in Personnel and Counseling, and a doctorate in Public Administration. In 1971, he married one of his college classmates, Shirley Meyers, and soon had two beautiful sons…Aaron, who was born in 1975, and Justin, born in 1977.
In 1977 he was hired as the Executive Director of BARC, a nonprofit supporting people with developmental disabilities in Pennsylvania. At BARC he grew the organization to serve almost one thousand children and adults through schools, community homes, work programs, and advocacy. Prior to BARC his job titles included: Bar Tender, Gas Station Attendant, Horse Caretaker, College Instructor, High School Teacher, Special Education Teacher, Executive Consultant, Director Residential and Day Programs, Clinical Director, Program Director, Intake Director, and Epidemiologist.
He is experienced at: opening community group homes, opening special schools and services for children, opening, expanding and operating sheltered employment and community employment programs, writing and revising an organization’s personnel policies, providing in-service training programs, capital campaign fundraising, community events fundraising, computerization, self funded employee benefit programs (health, unemployment, workers compensation), writing position papers (death penalty, sociality, sexuality), strategic and long range planning, long-term debt tax-exempt refinancing, investing trust funds, writing and revising bylaws and constitutions, reviewing, ranking and grading jobs, multi-modal bio-psycho-social assessment, outcome measurement, investigation techniques, defending employment related lawsuits, initiating and implementing paradigm shifts, television and radio interviews, mentoring master degree candidates, consulting to businesses, yoga and meditation.
In the 1990’s the author pursued the study of religion, Jewish history, Talmud and the pursuit of his doctorate, which he received from Nova University in 1995. His dissertation, The Relationship of Nonprofit Capital Fundraising Strategies to Selected Organizational Variables was nominated by The Council for Advancement and Support of Education for the Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Grenzebach Award. He was Promoted for Meritorious Service to Fellow in the American Association on Mental Retardation. He holds competency certificates in the following: Finance (University of Pennsylvania – Wharton School); Leadership (Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare – Office of Mental Retardation and North Penn Academy – Desales University); Medical Ethics and Decision Making (University of Penn Medical School); Ford Motor Company Dispute Resolution; Meditation.
Loving his job and keeping busy with family activities…little league, soccer league, swimming teams, marching band, karate, music lessons, his wife’s township events, and their struggling thirty family synagogue…kept him going, but did little to ameliorate his growing struggle with clinical depression. He was wallowing in a morass of symptoms accentuated by denial, and, although he worked in the mental health field, he couldn’t do anything to help himself. In his late forties, when the symptoms became too much to bear, he sought and received help. With his sons attending college he faced the stark deficiencies of his marriage: no real connection to his spouse; withering mutual respect, and few mutual interests. When he turned 50, he separated and eventually divorced his wife, and moved closer to his job in Bucks County, PA. He found lodging from a twenty-year-old acquaintance, Jean Ryersbach, who he had met via Bucks County United Way meetings. His relationship quickly progressed from tenant to soul mate and partner.
After another serious bout with depression he found yoga and meditation, which led him to teach and develop his own school of yoga and meditation, anchored by Judaic spiritual tradition and practice. He is trained in Jewish Shamanism and Jewish Spiritual Direction.