Jim Brulé brings a wealth of experience from a wide variety of domains and cultures. His careers include and integrate clinical psychology, computer science, healthcare, regulatory expertise, and corporate management. The author of two books and an award-winning essay on artificial intelligence, he has also long-established the role of narrative communication throughout all these endeavors. For example, in his position as regulatory expert to a large electronic health records company, he relied on storytelling to communicate the meaning of a thousand pages a month of regulations to software engineers, sales and marketing staff, and physicians and clinicians.
As a clinical psychologist, Mr. Brulé worked with families and groups according to the systems approach of Bateson, Erikson, and Haley, which honed his skills at crafting incisive yet empathetic interventions to move complex systems to healthier states. The techniques he developed in this decade, including Eriksonian hypnosis and the ability to perceive systemic forces, continue to serve him greatly. During this period, along with his mentor he consulted with organizations in the United States and England on organizational development, focusing on collaboration and effective communication.
In 1985, after completing his Master’s degree in Computer Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, he took on senior roles in the nascent Artificial Intelligence (AI) industry, first leading the American technology division for a large British consultancy’s foray into North American AI product lines, and then as executive director for the Air Force’s research consortium of universities and industry into AI. He was able to convert that experience into the successful co-founding of an AI-based corporation which automatically translated hand-drafted facility maps into object-oriented databases; Coherent Research had grown to over 300 staff with offices internationally by the time it was sold.
The sale gave him the opportunity to move into healthcare, where he applied his talents first to practice management and then to digesting and communicating the eruption of regulations surrounding Meaningful Use and healthcare reform. During this period he created and launched internal executive training programs in narrative communication and collaboration, which ultimately became components of internal candidates’ path to promotion to Vice President.
In parallel with these activities, in 2007 he undertook a two-year specialized training program in advanced storytelling, which underpins and amplifies the techniques used in narrative communication. A decade later, he took over the school and rebranded it as Transformational Storytelling; it has been accepting students since then, and currently functions at full capacity.
In 2018, he launched Compass Narratives to work with companies and individuals who see the promise of narrative communication. He has consulted with and presented to organizations across the country and around the world.
His avocation is healing through storytelling. In this regard, he serves as an interfaith end-of-life chaplain for local hospitals, hospice, and Omega Homes, and conducts regular programs (online and in person) to use storytelling to address issues of death, grief, and loss. He has received training from multiple End of Life Doula organizations, and offers his services as a death doula.