Meet the team here at AugustTurak.com!
August Turak
August Turak has integrated his life-long passion for personal and organizational transformation with a highly successful career as an entrepreneur, consultant, and executive with a variety of companies like MTV Networks, A&E Networks, United Press International, and Bell Atlantic.
Drawing on his experience as the protégé of the man who founded the IBM Executive School, 14 years working alongside the Trappist monks of Mepkin Abbey, and over 30 years of business experience, Turak offers the power to transform your business and your life.
Often described as a “worldly monk,” Turak combines the hard-edged discipline of a bottom-line leader with a passionate commitment to putting people first. With humor, sincerity, and straight talk, he uses dozens of real life examples drawn from his own remarkable career to argue for an ancient yet emergent economic model that he calls service and selflessness. This model invites us to transcend our entrenched notions that profit and selfless service are intrinsically incompatible. Through example after example, Turak continually reminds us that we are surrounded by heroic organizations and individuals like the Trappists monks and Warren Buffet who are wildly successful not despite their passionate commitment to the highest ideals but because of them.
A charismatic and highly sought out speaker and seminar leader, Turak was awarded a Coolidge Fellowship from CrossCurrents magazine, won the Grand Prize for his Brother John essay in the John Templeton Foundation’s Power of Purpose Essay Contest, and most recently published Business Secrets of the Trappists in Forbes.com. This four part series topped the charts as Forbes’ most highly rated article, and Mr. Turak is now working on expanding the article into a book.
In 1993 Turak founded Raleigh Group International (RGI) and later Elsinore Technologies. In 2000 RGI was sold to privately held Mutek Inc.- later renamed Identify Software. In 2006 Identify was purchased by BMC Software headquartered in Houston, Texas.
Melissa Carter
As director of AugustTurak.com, Melissa Hayes Carter is the glue that holds the team together. She puts her 12 years of experience in accounting, operations/sales/marketing support, IT and IS in companies such as TogetherSoft, Borland, Identify Software, and BMC Software to good use. Melissa made the choice to work under August Turak’s tutelage full time back in 2008 when a chance encounter with Turak and his writings was just the opportunity she was looking for; not only to enhance her management skills, but to grow personally as well. Her 8 years of experience as administrator and international trainer of the Customer Relationship Management database, Siebel, allowed her to meet her constant need to help others. She has continued to grow under the influence of Turak and she is committed to make the necessary changes in her life; not only to become the person she really wants to be, but to help others succeed in becoming the people they want to be.
Chris Leithe
Chris Leithe, a Raleigh, NC native, attended Duke University and graduated in 2007 with a BS in Psychology. Upon graduating, Chris worked in a lab doing neuroradiological research at Duke until he came across an opportunity to join a venture backed startup in Durham, NC designing and researching clinical decision support software. Chris quickly found a passion for entrepreneurship and decided to forgo his original plans of attending medical school. After 2 years of working for the venture backed startup, Chris heard August Turak on NPR – Frank Stasio’s “The State of Things,” and decided that he had to learn how to think like August. Chris then attended August’s Business Secrets of the Trappists lecture at Duke University. Following the lecture, he knew August was on to something. After pestering Melissa and winning her support, Chris was soon volunteering for the organization. Eventually, in April, Chris came on fulltime to run out-reach for August Turak. Chris enjoys any type of athletics including basketball, lacrosse, “elipticizing” and biking. He cooks whenever he gets the opportunity but is never afraid to let Melissa bring out her crock pot. He often has to turn away vegetables and fruits from August’s garden because he simply can’t eat that much produce. Chris resides in Raleigh, NC and can be reached at chris (at) augustturak.com. Don’t hesitate to contact him if you are interested in having August come speak or work with your organization.
Jonathan Cook
I’m Jonathan Cook. The way I see it, there are two basic directions in life: there’s frittering your life away on meaningless, empty, inconsequential nonsense – that’s one direction – and then there’s what August Turak is all about, which is the other. I first met August Turak when I was a soul-searching eighteen year-old kid, and something about Aug’s message and the way he presented it – I can still hear the words “Doubt is sacred!” ringing clean in my ears – hit me like a bolt of lightening, and truly became a turning point in my life. In regards to where I’ve turned exactly, well, professionally, these days I’m an Art Director at The Visionaire Group in Los Angeles. Outside of that (and within it), what I try to be about is searching for the truth/Truth and trying to communicate it to others, and using various forms of media to do it. When I was a young man I was deeply bugged about not wasting my life, not living a life of quiet desperation, trying to do something truly useful and worthwhile with whatever time I had, etc. These days, with spending some of that time trying to help AugustTurak.com get Aug’s message out there, well, that’s at least one of the ways I’ve found it.
Jennifer Peeler
My name is Jennifer Peeler. I’m a student of civil engineering, design and life. You might ask how that led me to intern as website admin here at AugustTurak.com.
Well, the answer is… a lifelong search for something meaningful. I am a connector of ideas who by the age of 18, nearly done with my first year of college, having been through the top high school in NC, honor roll, and ROTC had all but lost hope in our world, in our government and even my chance of graduating. I wasn’t depressed; I was just coasting, getting by, waiting for the next big thing. And like most big things, it snuck in quietly into a curious trip to a meeting of the Self Knowledge Symposium. I didn’t know why I went, but the first thing they asked everyone that night was “Why are you here?” And that got me thinking.
Three months later, having participated in every meeting and heard every story about our 20-year history, I was President of the Self Knowledge Symposium. I met Mr. Turak; I thought I had asked him a simple question, “What makes a successful meeting discussion?” Well, I had my own ideas and I had the mistaken one that there was going to be some kind of academic discussion about that question, but August looked at me and the others in the room and said, “You start by asking something like, ‘What is the worst thing that ever happened to you?’” Then, my heart crashed to the floor as I realized he expected an answer. I had only a few seconds, and my head spun and spun through memory.
Through sobs, I told my story to strangers, feeling the relief of ages to have it all out. We all experienced a successful meeting. With just one sentence, August changed the way we viewed the problem.
That is what Mr. Turak does every day. Life is not about waiting for the next big thing, it’s about the adventure of creating it. When AugustTurak.com needed revitalization, I took my volunteer role in the organization a step further by aiming past the target of a new look for the website to create an internet home for people seeking transformation on any level. As a college senior, I stepped in and took responsibility of the new site project implementation working directly with the developer to meet the deadline and you can see the results. For the past 6 months, I have been managing the release of site posts, blogs, and feature updates through our site and social media so that, to borrow the PBS phrase, viewers like you can learn to apply Turak’s model too.
We created a unique, four category structure dividing the topics of economics, business, career, and life into their own areas of AugustTurak.com. You can apply Turak’s model of service and selflessness to any of these areas distinctly or, as those of us who work for AugustTurak.com do, you can connect all aspects of your transformation and follow the real-world applications and links at the end of each post. Why are you here?
