ABOUT US

Please Note: Center for Sustainable Change has ceased its operations as of August 30th 2018. This site is left up as an archive to the work that was done by the Center and others in the Three principles community.

Our work is grounded in the Three Principles and is built on three decades of successfully applying a Principles-based, innate-health psychology within communities and schools across the nation.

For over 30 years, we have trained and collaborated in partnership with school districts, governments and correctional programs, veterans organizations and major foundations – such as The San Francisco and W.K. Kellogg foundations – on innate resiliency programs across the United States.

As understanding of the Three Principles deepens, the innate authority to advance this understanding awakens in more people and communities across the globe. Truly, we are all of the same essence and derive energy from one source, Universal Mind. That one fact is transforming lives to change the world.

OUR STORY SO FAR

Center for Sustainable Change was co-founded in 2004 by psychologist Roger C. Mills, Ph.D. and his daughter, Ami Chen Mills-Naim, with the help and encouragement of Mr. Don Carlson, father of the late author Richard Carlson, and a longtime supporter of Roger’s work. From its beginning, the Center for Sustainable Change (CSC) built on the broad body of work and remarkable results Roger Mills helped to create in distressed communities and schools across the nation over the previous two decades. CSC also drew on the community, youth, and school based work of Ami Chen Mills-Naim over the previous decade in Santa Clara and San Francisco counties in California.

LogosCSC has partnered with major local foundations and global foundations, such as The San Francisco Foundation and W.K. Kellogg Foundation, to produce materials, conduct trainings and run national programs eliciting the innate resiliency and well being in human beings from all backgrounds in life—but particularly the under-served.

Center for Sustainable Change has worked with partner agencies in San Francisco (California), the Mississippi Delta, Des Moines (Iowa), Charlotte (North Carolina), the United Kingdom, and many other locations. Many project reports, videos and books have emerged from this work.

Ami Chen Mills Naim Gabriela Maldonado MontanoAfter Roger Mills’ passing in 2010, Gabriela Maldonado-Montano, a Three Principles trainer in the San Francisco Bay area, joined Ami at the Center, both serving as Co-Directors for two years. Ami and Gabriela brought the National Community Resiliency Project to fruition in areas like Des Moines, Charlotte and Mississippi before realizing their personal strengths were in presenting, training and coaching. They moved on to build successful businesses in those areas and the search was on for a new Director.

In 2012, Dave Nichols, previously the Director of a small community development organization in Charlotte, North Carolina, began serving as the Executive Director. He moved from doing community work in one square mile to doing it on a global scale. Under Dave, CSC continued to press on doing great work in communities, education and with at-risk youth. An annual telesummit was developed during this time, as well as a Collaborative Associate Program and work began with Veterans. In October 2017, Center for Sustainable Change partnered with Divine Play to put together The Awesome Event in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Upon Dave’s “refirement” in 2017, Terri Alamo, who had been doing contract work for CSC and assisting Dave, was approached about the Executive Director position. Her education in business, experience as head of a Virtual Assistant company for life coaches, combined with her love of the Principles gave CSC a unique possibility of taking things to a new level of engagement in both physical and virtual communities. Dave Nichols remains involved with CSC as a Goodwill Ambassador and supports the Center with fundraising, consulting and works on the ground in his own community.

In February 2018, we celebrated the 5th annual Global Telesummit, Transforming Community from the Inside Out. In April 2018, we launched our new website with a stronger focus on highlighting the many communities using this understanding, as well as providing additional support, networking opportunities, resources and training to those on the ground.

CSC at the Awesome Event

We’d like to thank all our supporters, volunteers, sponsors and donors that have supported us over the years.

Our Board of Directors
Our Team

Roger Mills, Ph.D.

(1943-2010)
Co-Founder and Former President

Amy Chen Mills-Naim

Co-Founder, Former Executive Director and Former Education Director

Gabriela Madonado-Montano

Former Co-Executive Director

Dave Nichols

Former Executive Director
Good Will Ambassador

Terri Alamo

Executive Director
CEO

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Sandy Johnson

Board Chair

Sandy Kelley Johnson, in addition to being Vice President of the CSC Board, chairs the Fund Development Committee. She was first trained in the Three Principles through CSC’s W. K. Kellogg Foundation-funded National Community Resiliency Project in Charlotte’s Lakewood neighborhood where she volunteered. She spent many years working in health care planning and administration in Tennessee and North Carolina with a regional planning agency, regional human services agency. State government, Hospital Corporation of America, and Carolina HealthCare System. She has been a Board President of several not-for-profit organizations, as well. She has an MPA from the University of Tennessee and lives in Charlotte, NC.

Helena Roth

Board Vice-Chair

Helena Roth, validation engineer and project manager within the Pharmaceutical industry turned change agent and professional coach. She has run her own consultancy firm since 2007. Helena is Swedish and lives in Malmö, in the southern part of Sweden. Helena was introduced to the 3Ps when undertaking Supercoach Academy 2014, and came into contact with CSC during this time. A mother of two, she became very involved in the Swedish school debate when she was elected chairwoman of the local parent’s association of the schools her children were attending. Helena immersed herself in the possibilities of education, seeing it as the foremost tool for co-creating society, and believing we can do better than the current state of affairs. As a result of this interest in the power and possibility of education and learning, Helena was one of the initiators of the Swedish movement #skolvåren (translates in English into #SchoolSpring) that was born on Twitter in February 2013.

Jim Barry

Chief Financial Officer, Board Secretary

Jim Barry is a graduate of Santa Clara University with a BA in English literature and of Lincoln University Law School with a Juris Doctor degree. Jim has been practicing law in Santa Clara County, California since 1979, currently as a sole practitioner. Jim was first introduced to the Three Principles in the mid 1980’s which has dramatically impacted his life. He became good friends with Dr. Roger Mills and closely followed Roger’s amazing work with distressed communities and schools. In 2004, Jim assisted Roger Mills and his daughter Ami Chen Mills-Naim in forming the Center for Sustainable Change as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation and has been a member of the board of directors and board secretary ever since.

Free Landauer

Board Member

Free Landauer is a retired software engineer living on Maui. In 1994, while working as an engineer, he got into a “political” situation with a coworker. This conflict was very upsetting and he could not find a way to deal with it until he read a book by Richard Carlson called “You Can Feel Good Again.” Free had a big insight then that the problem was not with the coworker but was caused by his own thinking. This book was based on the work of Sydney Banks, which is now called the 3 Principles. Following this insight Free attended the academy at Santa Clara County which taught their students how to share the Principles. He was invited to join the board of CSC a few years ago. In addition to sharing the Principles on Maui, Free volunteers to help the marine wildlife there.

Clytee Mills

Board Member

Clytee Lally Mills, MSN, RNCS –  After receiving her Master’s degree from University of Florida and being licensed as a psychiatric clinical nurse specialist, Clytee has worked in a variety of mental health settings in communities, universities and private practice. In 1990 Clytee partnered with husband, Roger C. Mills, Ph.D., in program development and administrative support for a consulting, education and prevention company for those interested in a Principles-based/innate health psychology. When this company became a non-profit organization, Center for Sustainable Change, Clytee began serving on the Board and is a certified Three Principles Practitioner. Clytee is dedicated to helping the aging, people in transition and family caregivers which includes grandparents. She maintains a private practice, active volunteer participation and is developing support groups and classes.

Mary Martin

Board Member

Mary Martin was first exposed to the 3 Principles in 1998, and has considered herself a 3 Principles practitioner since 2004. She currently serves as Director of the Division of Community and Family Support (DCFS) in the Office of Early Childhood at the Colorado Department of Human Services in Denver, Colorado. Through the years she has also served formally and informally as a teacher and mentor to awaken creativity, resilience and well-being in individuals and groups through the understanding of the Principles of Mind, Thought and Consciousness, and this is the work she considers most important of all. Mary holds a Master’s of Social Work degree and is licensed as a Clinical Social Worker. She completed her graduate and undergraduate work (a Bachelor’s degree in English) at Louisiana State University in her home state. She has 3 sons, now grown and married, and 3 grandchildren who are the light of her life.

Gretchen Blais

Board Member

Gretchen began her 3 Principles career working with Roger Mills from 1990 to 1992 and has taken many subsequent courses and seminars by Mills, George Pransky, Mark Howard, Michael Neill, and others. She earned a BA in Psychology from Mills College and after a varied career in human resources and business, she earned her Master’s in Clinical Counseling from Cal State Hayward, earning a M.F.C.C. license. She has since concentrated much of her career in Addiction Therapy in the greater Oakland area.

Gretchen recently retired and has joined CSC’s Board to help bring the Principles to community-based organizations across the US and around the world.

OUR TEAM

Terri Alamo

Executive Director / CEO

Terri was first introduced to the Principles in 2010 and has been promoting the understanding ever since in support roles with Three Principles facilitators and organizations such as Michael Neill, Annika Hurwitt, Linda Pritcher, and 3PGC. Terri received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration from SUNY Empire State College in 2003. She started her own Virtual Assistant Company, TLC for Coaches in 2008 after working in various businesses including banking, abrasives, the newspaper industry, and for the Catholic Diocese in roles that included member services, business manager, accountant, CFO and sales positions. Terri looks forward to spreading an awareness of the “inside-out” approach to human resiliency within communities around the world with passion and enthusiasm.

Lynanne Lawhead

Chief Operating Officer

Lynanne Lawhead is the Chief Operating Officer of Center for Sustainable Change. She began her early understanding of the Three Principles by taking to heart “Be Here Now” by Ram Dass as she traveled the “Hippie Route to India” in 1972-73. It was during her positions on the Board for and as the Executive Director of Cypress Center for Well-Being that Lynanne gained a deeper understanding of the Three Principles that has impacted her life.

Helen Neal-Ali

Social Proof Project Coordinator

Helen Neal-Ali was introduced to the 3 Principles 22 years ago by Elsie Spittle. Over the years she has done work in low income communities, jails, businesses, drug rehabilitation, HIV clients, domestic violence, schools, and one on one sessions with clients. Her goal in life is to help as many people find their wisdom within by sharing the 3 Principles with them. As part of CSC, she is collecting social evidence and real life stories of where the Three Principles are being shared, and the experiential results for our Social Proof Project.

Dave Nichols

Goodwill Ambassador, Former Executive Director

Dave Nichols is a leader in Three Principles-based community development. Immediately preceding his role as the Center’s Executive Director, Dave (with Ami Chen Mills-Naim) co-directed the Center’s W.K. Kellogg Foundation-funded National Community Resiliency Project (NCRP). For over three years he led NCRP’s on-site work in Charlotte, NC. Dave stepped down as Executive Director in 2017. He remains a part of the team as a Goodwill Ambassador and is currently a board member at 3PGC.

Chini Nichols

Research Associate, Former CSC Business Manager

Chini Nichols brings a wealth of information and experience to CSC after 6 years as fulltime Business Manager for CSC. Working with her husband, Dave Nichols, she was responsible for accounting, business management, event planning, and much more, She retired in 2017 and now supports CSC as a volunteer Research Associate and Archivist.

Judy Sedgeman

Mental Health Educator

Judith A. Sedgeman, EdD has been dedicated to sharing the Principles of Mind, Consciousness and Thought professionally for more than 30 years. Dr. Sedgeman has worked over the years with many other practitioners of the Three Principles throughout the United States and around the world. Dr. Sedgeman has long been a leader in mentoring, teaching and practicing leadership in the presentation and development of Three Principles education and services. She serves as a consultant and leads In the Moment calls for Center for Sustainable Change.

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Charlotte Firestone

Community Care Specialist

Charlotte provides website maintenance and supports all online video programs including weekly calls, webinars and the annual Telesummit. She also assists in marketing and promotional needs through her company SpiralSpark. SpiralSpark is a Vermont-based website consultancy committed to providing impactful communication thruways and excellence in client service. They specialize in unique, custom websites that reflect clients’ dreams, plus they empower businesses to have more control and understanding over their web representation. SpiralSpark’s satisfied clients are located in several states throughout the US, and have previously worked with the websites of two other Three Principles-based organizations.

Joe Alamo

Community Support

Joe implemented new website systems to help expand CSC’s base of awareness and attendees to programs and services. He (and his team at TLC for Coaches) assists with technical support, marketing, social media promotion, many aspects of live events and audio/video editing. TLC for Coaches has been providing a variety of services, primarily for life coaches and nonprofits, since 2008.

Kathy Johnson

Volunteer Coordinator

Kathy has over 35 years of successful healthcare management including 20 years with Sodexo, a Fortune 500 company. She worked for Marriott, was appointed to the Florida Governor’s Ombudsman Council, owned and operated a small business, co-authored two wellness books and over 20 publications, was a recipient of Florida State Grant for Hispanic Obesity project, and has been an invited speaker at numerous professional meetings. Kathy is a Registered and Licensed Dietitian. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Auburn University and a MBA from the University of West Florida. Kathy supported the Center at The Awesome Event and currently volunteers her time as a Volunteer Coordinator at Center for Sustainable Change.
“Throughout time, human beings have experienced insights that spontaneously and completely changed their behaviour and their lives, bringing them happiness they previously had thought impossible.”

 

– Sydney Banks, The Missing Link

Sydney Banks

We recognize Sydney Banks (1931-2009) as the original teacher of the Three Principles.

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