Chicago | Advisory Board Member | Center for Adlerian Practice and Scholarship
Dr. Jay Colker has the distinction of being part of the first cohort ever being granted a degree at Adler University starting his master’s degree in 1976. He studied with many of the Adlerians trained by Dr. Rudolf Dreikurs. Dr. Colker has had two distinct phases of his career: 20 years of clinical work and managing clinical facilities and over 20 years of organizational development work as a consultant and as a senior human resources executive in a multi-billion dollar corporation. As a clinician, Dr. Colker worked in a private counseling practice first full time and then part time, as well as in various agency settings including responsibility as the clinical coordinator for a heroin addiction’s treatment facility.
For seven years, Dr. Colker was Director of Grant Hospital’s Chemical Dependence Program and the Clinical Training Program for Addiction’s Counselors. Dr. Colker also was an advocate for change Statewide as Vice Chairman and then Chairman of the Illinois Hospital Addiction Treatment Administrator’s Forum. One area of passion for Dr. Colker has been family education. Dr. Colker presented hundreds of talks in the community to parent groups and also ran the Adler School’s Family Education Center for four years in the 1990’s.
In addition to his Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology, Dr. Colker also obtained an MBA and a Doctor of Management Degree in Organizational Leadership. As a management consultant for seven years in the 1990’s, Dr. Colker worked with Fortune 500 corporations including Exelon, ComEd, and McDonalds, and smaller for-profit and not-for-profit concerns. He adapted the open forum model to work with managers to enhance coaching and leadership skills eventually developing an approach named Crowdsourced Coaching.
For 11 years, Dr. Colker was the Chief Learning Officer for ShoreBank, the largest and oldest community development bank in the U.S. Dr. Colker was responsible for employee training, leadership development, and enhancing performance within all lines of business. Dr. Colker has also consulted internationally and was instrumental in introducing customer service skills to institutions in the Republic of Georgia and Azerbaijan, and has also consulted in Mongolia, Armenia, India and Israel.