Principal
Root Action Consulting services are provided by Skip Spitzer, in partnership with a network of distinguished collaborators.
A change maker on a wide range of social and environmental issues for more than 25 years, Skip has worked from the local to the global level. He has started co-ops, run electoral campaigns, founded a labor union, worked in war zones, coordinated international coalitions and helped negotiate global environmental treaty texts.
Among other organizations, Skip has worked with Pesticide Action Network (PAN) North America, the Women's Campaign for Guatemala, the Ecological Farming Association, Long Island Eastern Farm Workers Association, Pastors for Peace Cuba program, the United Farm Workers, and the Resource Center for Nonviolence. He is a founding member of the national Genetic Engineering Action Network and the international Agribusiness Accountability Initiative.
For more than a decade Skip has been a social change skills trainer, focusing on organizational development, campaign development, facilitation, consensus process, grassroots organizing, using non-violent direct action and other topics. He has given workshops at Ruckus Society action camps, a wide range of movement conferences and numerous national mobilizations. He has also authored a variety of activist skills articles and materials, including “Unleashing our Power” [PDF file] and other titles available in Resources.
Skip trained as a Conflict Resolution Mediator at the Conflict Resolution Center in Aptos, CA.
Earning an M.A. in sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, he has taught at California universities and community colleges, and has authored many articles and other publications, including “A Systemic Approach to Occupational and Environmental Health” [PDF file] recently appearing in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health.
For many years Skip worked as a software engineer for computer industry leaders such as Netscape Communications and Borland International. He developed databases for the Delta School for at-risk youth and the Central American Refugee Center. Skip has designed and developed high-end, code-driven Web sites and other online systems for a variety of organizations, including PAN North America. He developed the Web-based Global Collective Action Tool for facilitating international collaboration.
Long interested in how positive change happens, Skip believes that effective and inclusive collective action is an essential factor in building a new world. He created Root Action Consulting to help people of conscience work together better.
Skip lives in Santa Cruz, California, and likes to sail, play guitar, build things and teach consensus process to his cats.