Tyler Norris is Executive Director of the Abraham Path Initiative. www.abrahampath.org Under the auspices of Harvard University, API is opening of a long-distance route of cultural and historical tourism following the journey of Abraham through the Middle East some 4,000 years ago. The Path is a route of sustainable tourism, and a catalyst for regional economic prosperity. It also serves as a neutral platform for human encounter and cross-cultural understanding, community-based development, youth leadership, preservation of historic sites and natural environment, and positive media coverage.

Previously, Tyler served as CEO of Community Initiatives, a consulting and software development firm focused on improving health outcomes and revitalizing participatory democracy. CI’s Workforce EngageTM venture built social capital to improve hospital performance.Via such clients as Kaiser Permanente, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the YMCA of the USA, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation,Tyler has worked in hundreds of communities in the US and internationally, helping initiate civic, health, and social ventures. Tyler is founder and President of the Kuhiston Foundation in Dushanbe,Tajikistan, an organization that helped start that nation’s national park and micro-credit systems, and wrote its laws governing NGO’s. Further, he is in the Masters in Divinity program at Naropa University. In the 90’s Tyler served at the National Civic League and with the U.S. Coalition for Healthier Cities and Communities.

He is co-author of Pioneering Healthier Communities (YMCA of the USA, 2006), Communities That Learn (Community Initiatives, 2004),Trendbenders (American Hospital Association, 2002), Facilitating Community Change (Grove International, 2000) and the Community Indicators Handbook (Redefining Progress, 1997). Tyler is an avid whitewater kayaker, mountain biker, backcountry skier, practitioner of Kriya yoga, and pilot.

Leadership