Board of directors Staff

Virginia Brown

LCSW

Wife, mother of 4, educator and therapist in private practice serving individuals and families addressing healthy family dynamics. She has worked for the Archdiocese of New York in the Parenting Ministry and has provided clinical support, training and program development to various agencies in Orange County New York (department of Social Services, Probation, Dispute Resolution Center, Cornell Cooperative Extension). She is currently on the faculty for Driven Professionals, a networking group in NYC providing wellness seminars and skills training for professionals. She is available to give seminars and workshops on self empowerment, anger management and the self-help industry.

After founding SEEK Safely, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit, and as a result of the tragedy that created international coverage, Ginny and her husband George have been involved in numerous interviews and media productions in the US and UK. Listen to her interview on GutwiZdom radio.

George H. Brown

LCSW

Husband and father of 4, works in a private practice with Ginny. With degrees in theology, psychoanalytic counseling and social work, George began his career as a high school religion teacher and counselor, hospital social worker, and then worked for the New York State Department of Mental Health Outpatient Services in Orange County, NY. He also coordinated the Orange County Counseling Service Unit for the FDNY following the terror attack on 9/11. He and Ginny have given many presentations in schools and churches on spirituality, family life and marriage enrichment in the tri-state area. (NY,NJ,CT)

Dr. Glenn Doyle, Board President

PsyD

Dr. Glenn Doyle is a licensed clinical psychologist. He is the founder and director of the Doyle Practice, a private psychotherapy practice with offices in Chicago and Washington DC, and the author of the popular self-improvement blog “Use Your Damn Skills.”
Dr. Doyle entered the psychology field because of his interest in self-help and personal growth. He earned his Doctor of Psychology degree from the Washington DC campus of the American School of Professional Psychology in 2008, and has been in private practice since 2011.
Dr. Doyle’s clinical work has focused on inpatient and outpatient treatment of complex trauma, particularly adults who were abused or traumatized as children. He has presented multiple times at the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation and the American Psychological Association, and has served as a behavioral health consultant for witnesses testifying before Congress on the subject of treating trauma survivors.
Dr. Doyle is passionate about making effective, safe, empowering psychological and behavioral tools available to as many people as possible. The Doyle Practice does a great deal of pro bono and sliding scale work, and his psychology blog “Use Your Damn Skills” is followed by almost 50,000 fans.
In his free time, Dr. Doyle is an avid distance runner who completes multiple marathons every year. In addition to blogging about psychology, he blogs about Catholic saints and history (as well as pizza), and his girlfriend Susan and he take frequent trips to explore Catholic shrines and basilicas across the country. He lives in Chicago with his Siamese cat, Abbey Road.

Dr. Christine Whelan

Dr. Christine Whelan is a professor, speaker and author. She’s known as the “Happy Professor” at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, where she’s a Clinical Professor of Consumer Science, teaching classes on well-being in the market economy. At Emory University she’s known as the “Purpose Professor,” where she’s supporting the applied and academic integration of the Emory Purpose Project and working with all first-year students through the Health 100 course from the Center for the Study of Human Health.
Dr. Whelan’s motto comes from Seneca, “Not for school, but for life we learn,” and she’s dedicated most of her career to translating academic research for the general public. Dr. Whelan is a nationally recognized thought leader, helping groups like the DeBruce Foundation, AARP’s Life Reimagined, Jackson National, Hackensack-Meridian Health and others on purpose-focused approaches to health, finances and self-improvement strategies for life’s transitions. She is on the board of SEEK Safely, and an outspoken advocate for the dissemination of research-based advice.
Dr. Whelan is the bestselling author of the acclaimed 10-lecture series Finding Your Purpose, an Audible Original Great Courses program. She is the author of five books, including The Big Picture: A Guide to Finding Your Purpose in Life (Templeton Press, 2016), Generation WTF: From “What the &%#$?” to a Wise, Tenacious and Fearless You (Templeton Press, 2011), Marry Smart: The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to True Love (Simon & Schuster, 2009) and Why Smart Men Marry Smart Women (Simon & Schuster, 2006).
While Dr. Whelan graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University, earned a masters and doctorate from the University of Oxford and has held teaching positions at the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Iowa and Princeton University, she believes that a good soundbite can transform the discourse, too. She has been published in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The New York Times, among other national outlets. She has appeared live on dozens of television programs and radio programs across the nation.

Anthony (Tony) Kirby

M.P.A.

Husband, father of two daughters, has a Master’s Degree in Public Administration and an undergraduate degree in Social Work. Tony has worked for government at the local, county and state level in New York for over 40 years, most of which has been at a management level. His expertise in management has been in strategic planning, team facilitation, quality management and customer relations. He has also served on a number of community boards in the Albany, New York region.

Tony is proud to be Ginny’s brother, George’s brother-in-law and the uncle of Kirby, Bob, Katie and Jean, as well as a more recent member of SEEK Safely.

Jean Brown, Director

M.P.P.P.A.

Jean is a writer and stay-at-home-mother to 2 young children. She lives in Toronto, Canada. She has Bachelors degrees in political science and writing from Loyola University Maryland, and a Master’s in Public Policy and Public Administration from Concordia University in Montreal. She worked as a policy analyst for Canada’s federal ministry of health. Jean lived in Thailand and has travelled extensively, including treasured memories of travelling with Kirby. Jean is active in creating the content for SEEK’s website and legislative efforts.