Paul L. Watson Jr.
President/CEO of the Global Action Research Center, which is a social change organization that provides training, technical support, and facilitation. Paul has over 35 years of experience in non-profit administration, management, and delivery human services by non-profit organizations. He is an experienced administrator, trainer and facilitator. Internationally, Paul produced a youth development strategy for two countries in Central Asia (Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan) and in Jamaica. In the Netherlands, he provided training in community development, micro-enterprise and strategic planning methods for participants to use in their local communities and has conducted a Community Youth Development training in Egypt. In South Africa, Paul organized and facilitated community forums that were designed to bring police and youth together to create and implement strategies to reduce crime in their neighborhoods.
Paul served as a lecturer at Springfield College-San Diego campus, Adjunct Faculty at UC San Diego in Urban Studies and Planning, The New School for Architecture and Design, and San Diego City College. He served as a youth development trainer for the San Diego BEST Initiative, a program evaluator for the Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition, which confronts the issues of human trafficking and child sexual exploitation, and on the Board of Directors for La Cuna, a foster finding agency specializing in the placement of Latino infants. He currently serves as the President of the Board of Directors for the Inner City Athletic Program.
He was the Past-Chair for the National Council on Youth Policy (National Network for Youth); Past-President of the Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition in San Diego; consultant to the statewide Institute for the Public's Health; consultant to the California Governor's Child Welfare Services Re-Design Workgroup, and the Jacobs Center for Non-Profit Innovation; Executive Steering Committee Member of the Board of State and Community Corrections. Currently he serves on the Global Food Initiative Advisory Team of the University of California, Office of the President.
He is a contributing author of “Beyond Prince and Merchant: Citizen Participation and the Rise of Global Civil Society”, co-authored 7 research articles and has published numerous articles on Community Youth Development, which is an approach supporting youth to become social change activists.
Paul holds a master’s degree in Human Service Administration and Community Youth Development from Springfield College.