I’d like to introduce myself.  I am Tom Croke, founder and captain of the team here at Thomas J. Croke and Associates, Inc. and FamilyLight^sm.  A native of New Cumberland, PA, suburb of Harrisburg, I am the second son of Dorothy (Gochnour) Croke and James Adrian Croke and brother of Lee P. Croke, currently of Scotch Plains, NJ.  This is not the typical resume or CV, you will usually find where a professional presents credentials.  I think this gives a better picture of who I am and how I might relate to you than a typical resume.  But if that is what you want to see, it will soon be posted in short version and detailed version.

I was graduated from Cedar Cliff High School (class of ’61) at age seventeen, and proceeded to my freshman year at Brown University.  After graduating from Brown in 1965 (A.B. Honors in Philosophy) I proceeded to graduate studies in philosophy at Wayne in Detroit, MI.  There I had the experience of focusing more energy on understanding the city and the people than on my assigned work, making my academic life in that venue notoriously unsuccessful.  From there, I returned to Brown University, where I was an admission officer for three years 1968-71.  By then we were in the late stages of the Vietnam war, the country was alarmed with fact that drug abuse and addiction had migrated from the slums to the suburbs, and I left the University to start a substance abuse intervention and prevention project in the city of Taunton, MA.  After two years I left there to direct the substance abuse clinic and St. Anne’s hospital in Fall River, MA known as Lifeline from 1973 to 1985. 

During this period of time I began an educational pattern that continues to this day.  Basically, I absorb as much as I can from the psychiatrists, psychologists and other credentialed clinicians.

I also began my family.  I married the former Heather Ann McLaughlin in 1967.  We had two natural children, Andrew (1969) and Susan (1972). In 1974, we  began the adventure of caring for a seven year old foster child, Ron, who came to us as an emergency thirty day placement.  Four and a half years later, Ron left us to be adopted by another family.  After  that was a failed adoption, we became his second adoptive parents.  Although this was not something that was diagnosed at the time, in hindsight it is clear that Ron met criteria for Reactive Attachment Disorder, and I must say life with him was an adventure that has shaped much of my thinking in my current work.  At 39 years old as I write this, Ron has given us four wonderful grandchildren and is a successful business-man in Virginia, following distinguished service in the Army and reserves.  If his first adoptive parents (with whom we have lost contact) were to see this, I hope they would understand that their time with Ron, although it failed to meet their expectations, has heavily contributed to his health and success, and his children bear their name. 

In 1985, I went to work for the Mediplex Group (whose assets have since been acquired by Sun Health Systems, then later by psyc), which operated a chain of health care facilities, mostly nursing homes and substance abuse treatment facilities. My assignment was to market their substance abuse services in the state of Rhode Island and in the portion of Massachusetts that projects east from Rhode Island, including Brocton, Fall River, New Bedford, Plymouth, Cape Cod and the offshore Islands.  In addition, I was responsible for coordinating with the discharge planning teams at the treatment facilities and guiding community aftercare as the patients returned home. 

During this period of time the style of work I do with families which had started to develop previously began to crystallize. 

Beginning about 1971, I was frequently called upon to consult with schools, public, private and parochial, particularly addressing approaches to high-risk children, especially teen-agers, a pattern that has continued, hopefully with progressively increasing competence.  It is also worth noting that throughout this period, I was increasingly working in people’s homes, never appreciating the formality of having families come to the office.  This period gave me my first exposure to the twelve-step approach to addictions that we see in Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, and to Family Systems Therapy, two influences that have guided my career. 

In 1989, my wife and I relocated to Greensburg, PA, where I now live, partly influenced by the desire to live closer to our widowed mothers who were still in the Harrisburg area and partly lured by an employment opportunity near Greensburg.  In the latter situation I was recruited to be the marketing director for a small substance abuse treatment center its executive director, but after I was in that position for nine weeks, the executive director was out, along with “his team,” including me.  By that time we were committed to the move. I formed Thomas J. Croke and Associates, Inc. which was originally a marketing firm, representing a number of treatment programs in the west attempting to attract an eastern clientele.  However, as events developed, it became increasingly clear that I could not be successful with these programs in the climate of that time without either working as an agent of managed care (honorable, but not a good match to my talents and interests) or persuade parents (in some cases) to take actions that I did not truly believe were in their best interests (something I would not do).  To be fair, the people I worked for were not asking me to persuade parents to act contrary to the wishes of their children, but it was clear that I could produce the numbers to make the relationships viable by “playing it straight.”

As 1993 approached, I terminated my marketing contracts and began to function as an educational consultant.  Naturally business was slow in the beginning so for a about two years I filled my time and earned some extra money as director of Youth Ministry at a local Methodist Church. I resigned that position in 1995 as business began to pick up, and also joined IECA.  I was probably the first to work exclusively with young people with behavioral, emotional and psychiatric difficulties. Now that is common. 

In order to grow the business I wrote for three publications – uncompensated but good for publicity.  They were Growthline and Recovery Way, two publications about alcoholism recovery, and Woodbury Reports, which is what you now see on the web at http://strugglingteens.com/.  I realized that my efforts were not producing the amount of business I had hoped for, so I turned my efforts to publishing my own newsletter, Bridge to Understanding. This morphed into an elaborate informational website. Through this vehicle, we were able to reach many who could not afford our fees -- or those of other consultants. 

Up until this time, I had put considerable effort into organized volunteer projects and the like.  At this point, most of my energy turned to improving my skills as a consultant, developing my business, and developing Bridge to Understanding – as well as taking care of personal issues.  I became legal guardian to my teenage Godson during the late ‘90s which was a project in itself. 

In September 2001, I married for the second time, experienced 9-11, discovered an embezzlement problem in my office, had a hernia repair, and discovered that we were in a recession.  We stopped publishing Bridge to Understanding and updating the Bridge to Understanding web site, as we lost the capital to keep it going with all of the above problems occurring at once.  A few years later, we removed it from the Internet, due to the fact that people were reading obsolete information there as if it were current.   

With a return to prosperity and life at a more measured pace, we are attempting to restore features of Bridge to Understanding on this website.  We will eventually restore some of the archived material.  

As of 2006, we had left our long time base of operation in Latrobe, PA, and were working from home offices with the core of the operation in the basement of our new home in Greensburg, PA.  The expanded website is our latest project. My wife and I have decided to raise a child together. So in October 2006, we adopted a golden retriever, Taffy, who keeps us all well trained.  Taffy was bored with us old people, we allowed her to adopt her friend "Babe," an 11 pound tabby cat, the same color as Taffy and the same age, who was being evicted from his apartment due to an unsympathetic landlord. The two of them together keep us highly entertained. 

Tom Croke

Last updated 8-20-08; minor edit 1-23-09