James G. White

James G. White was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1962. White graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with honors, attended graduate school at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, and was conferred the degree of Doctor of Divinity by Trinity Theological Seminary. He is the former President and CEO of the Johnson Institute (Foundation). White relocated to Washington DC to lead the organization from its national headquarters on Capitol Hill, where he oversaw the merger of the Johnson Institute into the Hazelden Foundation. He currently serves as Regional Vice President of the Nevada based WestCare Foundation Inc,a major national behavioral healthcare organization with a growing emphasis on treatment and recovery support for re-entering veterans and the incarcerated.
Music career
White is a former hip hop music recording artist, producer, and musician, signed in the fall of 1990 as Ghetto Priest.(Ghetto Priest- Organic Soul Movement-YouTube) In the fall of 1990, White joined the national program planning team for the "Self Destruction: Stop The Violence in Hip Hop Movement" ( Stop The Violence Movement)where he proposed the first touring national Hip Hop Summits to promote dialogue between the civil rights establishment and the hip hop community. He was a co-founder of NU-LITES, the National Urban League Incentives To Excel and Succeed, a model national youth leadership development program.(iamempowered.com) As Ghetto Priest White served as the executive producer and host of Slave Uprising, a popular weekly radio talk show and lead newspaper column for Wisconsin based Courier Communications (WNOV AM860 and the Milwaukee Courier Newspaper)( WNOV) in the late 1990s.The columns were reprinted nationally and nominated for several awards by the National Newspaper Publishers Association.(www.nnpa.org)
Faith Partners
In 1994, White co-founded Faith Partners with Trish Merrill (former Johnson Institute Vice President). Faith Partners is a group that began as the National Interfaith Alliance Against Substance Abuse to support local communities in their efforts to stop substance abuse. They stress spirituality and nurturing in a Congregational Team Ministry environment. . Johnson Institute became an early investor in Faith Partners, and in 2004 Faith Partners merged with the Johnson Institute and the Rush Recovery Center. The Faith Partners Approach to Substance Abuse Prevention, Intervention & Recovery Support has been validated by the U.S. HHS Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration as a Promising Evidence Based Intervention. Faculty at the University of Texas at Austin are completing an independent 3rd party, university based evaluation of the Faith Partners Model and Approach.(www.faith-partners.org)The Faith Partners Congregational Team Ministries have been implemented within hundreds of Christian, Jewish, and Islamic congregations throughout the USA.
Milwaukee politics
In the spring of 1996, White was elected to his first four-year term on the County Board of Supervisors in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He served three terms on the Board, serving at times as First Vice Chairman of the Board, Chairman of General Mitchell International Airport, the Milwaukee County Transit System, and the Milwaukee County Highway Commission. He was the only incumbent Milwaukee County supervisor to lose his office to a challenger in the April 1, 2008 Milwaukee elections; his failure to collect enough petition signatures to appear on the election ballot may have cost him his seat. Because he was offered the position the morning after the election, some speculate that White expected to secure the Johnson Institute presidency prior to the nomination paper deadline and was to make a retirement announcement. According to the following interview from February 26, 2008, White was chosen to succeed Allem as President and CEO before the April 1st, 2008 County Board election outcome. White took over as President and CEO of Johnson Institute on April 2, 2008.
(www.milwaukee.gov/CountyBoard) )(An interview with Johnny Allem-Outgoing President/CEO of Johnson Institute and Bill White-February 26, 2008)Faces & Voices of Recovery-Interview Questions 21 and 22...www.facesand voicesof recovery.org/publications/profiles/johnny_allem.php
As of April 2013, at least (12) of White's legislative and campaign staffers, and political proteges have gone on to serve as elected officials, campaign managers, and senior legislative staffers in Wisconsin.
As 1st District Milwaukee County supervisor, White sponsored and secured passage of ````the United States' first local legislation to prohibit post-hurricane rebuild contractors from doing business with local government until Federal authorities removed them from the list of companies who took money but failed to help rebuild New Orleans and other hurricane ravaged Gulf region communities.
Johnson Institute Foundation and WestCare Foundation
White is the former President and CEO of the Johnson Institute Foundation. Johnson Institute was founded in 1966 by Vernon Johnson and philanthropists Irene and Wheelock Whitney. Johnson Institute was a pioneering force in the launching of the addiction recovery field, and the Minnesota Model of substance abuse treatment. Intervention for the addicted, and outreach to the families of the afflicted was their specialty. In the summer of 2009, White oversaw the merger of the Johnson Institute Foundation into the Hazelden Foundation.(www.hazelden.org/web/public/Johnson_institute_09.page)(www.behavioral.net/article/Saving-and-Changing-Lives)(An interview with Johnny Allem-Outgoing President/CEO of Johnson Institute and Bill White-Faces & Voices of Recovery-Interview Questions 21 and 22...www.facesand voicesof recovery.org/publications/profiles/johnny_allem.php)
He currently serves as Regional Vice President in the Central Region for the Nevada based WestCare Foundation Inc, (www.westcare.com) and is overseeing the development of WestCare Wisconsin's Harambee Community Involvement Center, a certified Housing and Community Development corporation that also provides behavioral health services, fosters advocacy, and supports the development of community coalitions.In 2010,the City of Racine, WI contracted White to help a coalition of clergy and community leaders form a Not-for-Profit Faith Based Housing Development Development Corporation in the Racine community. Faith Builds Community formally launched in 2011 and is completing construction of its first (3bedroom/single family/2car garage)home through a contract with the City of Racine. White serves as the Project Management Consultant for Faith Builds Community. (Faith Builds Community-The Journal Times www.journaltimes.com/faith-builds-community/image_f25eb441-d96e-53 December 12, 2012-RACINE)(Racine Journal Times, Thursday, April 19, 2012 City leaders and area pastors launch federally funded construction project)
Organizations
White also serves as National Advisory Board Chairman of the Katrina Information Network an initiative of the Washington, DC and Oakland, CA basedPraxis Project.(www.thepraxisproject.org/tags/hurricane-katrina)
In 2008 White led efforts towards the launch of the Families Forward Initiative, a national advocacy, prevention, intervention, and recovery support initiative (based on the Faith Partners Model), as a partnership initiative between the Johnson Institute and the Congress of National Black Churches (CNBC), which had a 30-year track record of engaging the Black community in progressive national campaigns through its network of 65 thousand congregations and 19 million members of the Historically Black Christian Denominations.Eventually, the former Congress of National Black Churches relaunched as the Conference of National Black Churches, and White launched the Families Forward Initiative with a national training series funded by the Federal Center for Substance Abuse Prevention.
White was founder and chairman of Encompass: The Milwaukee Engineering Planning and Technical Careers Partnership; served on the board of directors of the Milwaukee Regional Science and Engineering Fair (MRSEF); (www.jsonline.com news/education/April 10, 2011)and served on the advisory board of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Engineering School's Office of Diversity. White is currently completing a graduate degree in Engineering Management at the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE).White also served as Co-Chairman of the Hip Hop Congress(www.hiphopcongress.com) National Advisory Board , served as a National Board chairman with H2A, the Hip Hop Association.(www.hiphopassociation.org) , and is a past chairman of Words, Beats, Life Inc.(www.wblinc.org)
World peace
In the spring of 2004, White served as the keynote speaker for the Dialogue International Interfaith Conference on World Peace in Istanbul, Turkey, and continues efforts to promote dialogue and shared global responsibility among the Abrahamic faith traditions (Christians, Muslims, and Jews). (www.kadip.org.tr/search Religious Leaders Meet in Mardin for Peace)He hosted a cultural exchange delegation of young professionals from the US to Turkey in the summer of 2006 and returned with a group of educators from the US in the summer of 2008. In 2008, White was appointed as a National Truth Commissioner by the Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign.(old.economichumanrights.org/RevDrJamesWhite.htm)(economichumanrights.org) In 2010, he was appointed Executive Director of the World Mission Foundation Inc, an affiliate NGO of the United Nations Economic & Social Council ECOSOCO where he was granted Special Consultant Status. WMF coordinates education, awareness, and advocacy initiatives through the U.N. that focus on the eradication of HIV/AIDS, the promotion of Women's Health, and the advancement of the African Moringa Plant in the fight against world hunger, malnutrition, infant mortality, and health promotion.(www.theworldmissionfoundation.org) (Mr Anthony N. Chima-YouTube)

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