Governing Board of Directors

Educational Solutions Board of Directors combines extensive experience in university education, environmental science, comparative religion, Islamic culture, new technologies, social entrepreneurship, conflict resolution, leadership development, and international marketing.

Robert Darr, Chairman of the Board.  Darr is a translator of classical Islamic poetry (The Garden of Mystery by Shabistari and Clarifications, selected poems from Rumi's The Masnavi).  He worked in Afghanistan directing a UN famine relief program. Under the auspices of the nonprofit he founded, the Afghan Cultural Assistance Foundation (ACAF), Darr directed carpet weaving projects for Afghan refugees in Pakistani camps. His recent book, Spy of the Heart, chronicles his times in Afghanistan (www.spyoftheheart.com).  Recently, ACAF directed and funded an acclaimed traditional tile work project in the Afghan mosque in Hayward, CA.  A current project he is working on is the reintroduction of classical Islamic literature of humanistic perspective into war-torn Islamic regions.

Darr is program director and head instructor of the Arques School of Traditional Boatbuilding in Sausalito, CA.  As a boy he made several sailing voyages with his father, Captain Omer Darr, between California and the South Seas.  He has studied with many California boat builders.  In the 1970s he established a boat shop on Tomales Bay, CA, where he built a number of small boats and yachts.  In 1981 he founded The Center for Wood Arts, a school of wooden boatbuilding in Marin County.  Darr has pioneered the use of native woods in traditional boatbuilding.

Arthur Deikman, M.D.  Dr. Deikman is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Medical School and is Board Certified in Psychiatry and Neurology.  He is a pioneer in the scientific investigation of meditation, the mystical experience, and consciousness.  He has published numerous scientific papers and four books, including The Observing Self: Mysticism and Psychotherapy and Them and Us: Cult Thinking and the Terrorist Threat.  His research reflects a contemporary perspective on spirituality, based on developmental, psychodynamic, and cognitive psychologies and informed by personal experience with the Zen Buddhist and Sufi traditions.  In addition, he has experience in the establishment and operation of therapeutic communities. Formerly a Clinical Professor of Pyschiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, he now divides his time between research, teaching, and the practice of psychotherapy.

Judith Jensen, Ed.D., Founder of Educational Solutions and Secretary of the Board.  Jensen has extensive experience in university education, distance learning, technical innovation, entrepreneurial efforts, project management, and international marketing.  In 1979, she received her Ed.D. from Harvard's Laboratory of Human Development at the Center for Research in Children's Television.  From 1980-1986, Jensen worked at the Stanford Instructional Television Network, a pioneer in distance learning and now the Stanford Center for Professional Development.  As Associate Director, she ran daily operations and Internet research projects, as well as handled financial analysis and national marketing.  In 1986, Jensen left Stanford to co-found and become President of University Video Communications, a Silicon Valley company.  Jensen surveyed leading faculty around the country to identify computer scientists and electrical engineers whose lectures would enrich university courses. These videotaped lectures were used as course inserts to update computer science and electrical engineering courses.  Major high-tech corporations, such as Apple, Microsoft, IBM, and Intel, funded production of these video-lectures, which were sold worldwide at low price to some 3,000 universities and 4,000 corporate sites.  Jensen supervised video shoots around the country and developed University Video Communications videotape distribution system.  From 1998-2002, she taught comparative religion as adjunct faculty at the Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls, OR.  Jensen's conflict resolution training and experience was provided through Marshall Rosenberg, Bob Chadwick, and Thomas Renault.

Thomas Renault.  Renault is President of Renault Alliance LLC, specializing in high-level mediation, facilitation, and training for corporations, government agencies, and communities.  Renault was trained by the UN and State Department on international relationships and customs.  He performed simultaneous translation of French/English between ministers and their delegations for a branch of the UN, the Universal Postal Union (UPU) headquartered in Bern, Switzerland.  He worked directly with the ministers of North and Central Africa, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Australia, France, UK, Sweden, Germany, and Spain.  In addition to translation, he accompanied ministers and their entourages to formal head-of-state events and trips within the US to help the ministers interface with American culture.  For several years, he handled mediations between New Mexico Native American tribes, 500-year-old Hispanic families, and members of the new Anglo culture through the New Mexico Metro Court System.

Currently, Renault works with multinational corportions and government agencies to gain greater results and competitive dvantage.

Larsen (Lars) Svanevik, Ph.D.  Svanevik is an emeritus professor at Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls. Having joined the faculty in 1966, he has taught a wide range of chemistry-related courses.  In 1995, Svanevik and Professor John Ritter founded the OIT Environmental Science Program.  Earlier, in 1992, he and his colleague, Professor Tom Connors, facilitated the first of its kind baccalaureate degree program in Vascular Technology.  Officially retiring in 1997, he continues to teach occasionally.  In addition to his teaching at OIT, he has also, since 1983, been a visiting professor of chemistry in the University of Oregon's summer program.

Svanevik, originally from San Francisco and a graduate of University of San Francisco, obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Oregon in 1980. He and his wife Barbara and their Golden Retriever, Sunny, divide their time between Klamath Falls and Springfield, OR.