Brian Gross - Bio
Brian Gross is a non-profit manager and board consultant, and instructor and curriculum developer who specializes in building bridges between social services, healthcare, education and the arts – managing growth, change, and program and fund development.
He has managed, coordinated and consulted for non-profit organizations in the U.S. and Canada for nearly 15 years, as well as concurrently serving as an adjunct professor, presenter and instructor at universities, alternative secondary schools, homeless drop-in centres, vocational colleges and professional conferences. He has co-authored three textbooks covering the topics of ethics, management, and multimedia production, and has been the critically-acclaimed 
writer, composer and performer of musical plays, a signed band, music for numerous dance companies, and anthologized poetry. Additionally, he has been featured artist in numerous gallery exhibitions, as well as appearing regularly on radio programs discussing everything from metaphysics to addiction, music composition and poetry.
His youth was marked by meteoric rises and falls – personal experiences which have, along with a stro
ng research ethic in evidence-based practice, informed all aspects of his work, especially with marginalized and minority youth, and adults learning to cope with life after protracted substance addiction.
By the time he reached his early 20s, not only had Brian served as Assistant to the California Campaign Manager of a U.S. Presidential bid, as Youth and College Coordinator against a California state-wide ballot initiative (which was 
defeated), become a youth facilitator for the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Centre, had a radio play he wrote broadcast across the U.S. on National Public Radio, been elected the Freshman Representative to the Democratic Club at a university in Washington, D.C., and received a special commendation from the Board of Supervisors of the County of Los Angeles – but he’d been expelled from the high school of which he was President, dropped out of 4 universities across the U.S. and Europe, and become a drug addicted, homeless youth, estranged from friends and family, living in a car on the streets of Hollywood.
His life turned around when he learned to focus not on what he accomplished, but on how he went about it – and he has found enduring stability in the realization that there is one thing that can’t be taken from him – his ability to give.
Brian has been recipient, grant/proposal writer and has overseen the contracts of dozens of awards, scholarships and grants from private, corporate and government sources, including from TELUS Vancouver Community Board, Coast Capital Savings, Rio-Tinto Alcan, Mercedes Benz, Fraser Health Authority, City of Los Angeles, City of Manhattan Beach, California Community Foundation, California State University, James Irvine Foundation, Durfee Foundation, Ucross Foundation, National Conference for Community and Justice – totalling nearly a half-million dollars.
Brian has lived in Europe, Asia and across North America. He speaks English, Spanish, French and Indonesian and holds a BA, MA and certificates in addictions, facilitation and instruction.