From the Mediate.com interview series -- a conversation with Peter Adler about his chapter in the book Evolution of a Field: Personal Histories in Conflict Resolution, recorded October 22, 2021.
Read: “Wabi-sabi” by Peter S. Adler
Peter S. Adler recently returned to Hawai’i, his home, after serving as president of the Keystone Center for nearly a decade.
Adler’s specialty is multi-party negotiation and problem-solving. He has worked extensively on water management and resource planning problems and mediates, writes, trains, and teaches in diverse areas of conflict management. He has worked on cases ranging from the siting of a 25-megawatt geothermal energy production facility to the resolution of construction and product-liability claims involving a multimillion-dollar stadium. He has extensive experience in land planning issues, water problems, marine and coastal affairs, and strategic resource management.
Prior to his appointment at Keystone, Adler held executive positions with the Hawai’i Justice Foundation, the Hawai’I Supreme Court’s Center for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), and the Neighborhood Justice Center. He served as a Peace Corps volunteer in India, an instructor and associate director of the Hawai’i Outward Bound School, and president of the Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution.
He has been awarded the Roberston-Cuninghame Scholar in Residence Fellowship at the University of New England, New South Wales, Australia, a Senior Fellowship at the Western Justice Center, and was a consultant to the US Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution. Adler has written extensively in the field of mediation and conflict resolution. He is the co-author of Managing Scientific & Technical Information Environmental Cases (1999); Building Trust: 20 Things You Can Do to Help Environmental Stakeholder Groups Talk More Effectively About Science, Culture, Professional Knowledge, and Community Wisdom (2002); the author of Beyond Paradise and Oxtail Soup (1993 and 2000) and numerous other articles and monographs. He more recently wrote Eye of The Storm Leadership (2008) and India40: A Memoir of Death, Sickness, Love, Friendship, Corruption, Political Fanatics, Drugs, Thugs, Psychosis, and Illumination in the US Peace Corps (2018).
