Haldane, Bernard

Bernard Haldane is widely recognized as the key innovator in the field of career development.

Born on May 15, 1911, Haldane was raised in England. In 1927, he received the First Certificate at the Royal College of Surgeons. Haldane then relocated to the United States. When he learned that the medical establishment of New York would not accept his British "pre-med" certificate, Haldane decided to pursue a different career path.

Haldane worked several odd jobs in New York, where he developed an interest in writing and labor relations. He served as the Associate Editor of the New York Journal of Commerce and studied management at Columbia University and New York University. He worked as a labor relations consultant and was a member of the Society for the Advancement of Management (SAM). After World War II, SAM asked Haldane to help returning military officers obtain jobs as they transitioned back to civilian life. This project marked the beginning of what would be Haldane's life work.

At this time, Haldane formed the Executive Job Counselors Service (EJCS) as an umbrella organization for his new career counseling and placement business. The EJCS philosophy was simple: "People who enjoy their work, do it better." As such, Haldane strived to develop a counseling technique to help people discover their strengths in order to find the type of work that would make them happy, valued employees. In 1947, his article, "A Pattern for Executive Placement," was published in the Harvard Business Review. The publication of this article signified acceptance of Haldane's work by the American business community. Haldane believed that if workers were happy and satisfied in their jobs, they would produce a higher volume and higher quality of work. Haldane's success with veterans convinced him that these methods would be beneficial to individuals and organizations alike.

In 1947, Haldane also formed Bernard Haldane Associates (BHA) as a job counseling firm. BHA filled a rising demand from individuals seeking job counseling and organizations seeking help with personnel issues. BHA offices were opened in New York and shortly thereafter in Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington, D.C. Subsequent BHA offices have been opened in cities throughout the United States and abroad.

In order to institutionalize his process and make it widely available, Haldane developed manuals for career counselors to help individuals examine their life experiences to uncover talents and their own unique pattern of skills. Haldane developed the System to Identify Motivated Skills (SIMS) and Success Factor Analysis (SFA) as two such methods. Haldane also authored fourteen books on the subject of job searches and career changes, including Career Satisfaction and Success, How to Make a Habit of Success, and Job Power .

In 1961, Haldane created a non-profit organization, the Foundation for Re-Employment, to assist public institutions, government agencies, religious, and civic groups with their employment and personnel needs. Haldane devoted considerable time and energy to this not-for-profit complement to his other job counseling endeavors.

During his long career, Haldane served a broad range of clients, including the Harvard Business School, United States Atomic Energy Commission, the United States Peace Corps, the United States Forest Service, several large corporations, dozens of educational and religious organizations, and hundreds of individual clients. Haldane was recognized by Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson, primarily for his work with young people and disadvantaged adults.

In 1966, Haldane met Jean Kind, who had emigrated from England for work. The couple married in 1967. That same year, Haldane moved his headquarters from New York City to Washington, D.C.. There, Haldane oversaw BHA operations while Jean worked on staff at the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. Together, Jean and Bernard translated Haldane's identification of talents and skills aimed at job-finding to the church setting. They provided consultations, workshops, and training for clergy and lay leaders around the world.

In 1974, Bernard Haldane formally retired from Bernard Haldane Associates and sold the company to individuals within the organization. The company still exists and operates under that name, with approximately 100 offices in the United States and abroad. As part of the sales agreement, Haldane agreed to work only with organizational clients and to cease individual client counseling. With the sale of BHA, Haldane was free to pursue related interests and research. Haldane's work focused primarily on religious, educational and youth groups and major organizational clients, such as the United States Forest Service, after 1974.

In 1977, Bernard and Jean Haldane relocated to Seattle, Washington. In his retirement, Haldane expanded his research and writing to focus on young adults, teens, deprived youth, and church ministry. He developed the Dependable Strengths Articulation (DSA) process as a result of his decades of job counseling and research. DSA was developed to help individuals identify their strengths and motivated skills in order to become more productive, achieve higher degrees of job satisfaction and develop self-esteem.

Bernard and Jean Haldane worked on various projects and conducted many leadership training sessions using the Dependable Strengths philosophy. In 1987, Bernard met Jerald Forster, a professor at the University of Washington's College of Education, who was interested in understanding why the DSA process was so effective. Thus began a 15 year research and learning collaboration between Haldane and the College of Education, known as the Dependable Strengths Project. The DSA process has been applied in colleges, high schools, WorkFirst job search training programs, with prisoners, in churches, non-profit organizations, youth groups, government agencies, and assisted living centers.

In 1997, Bernard and Jean Haldane began to explore how the Dependable Strengths process might be applied in other parts of the world. The couple took a long sabbatical and travelled to six countries, including South Africa. The Haldane's project was warmly received by the Anglican Bishop of Johannesburg, where the Dependable Strengths Foundation was established as a non-profit organization in 2003.

Bernard Haldane died in Seattle, Washington, on July 21, 2002, at the age of 91.

From the guide to the Bernard Haldane papers, 1927-2004, 1946-2000, (University of Washington Libraries Special Collections)