In My Third Act: Dan Quinlan on Science, Spirit, and the Middle Way

This month, Lynn speaks with Dan Quinlan of Third Act's Hope & Joy Series. He discusses his trajectory from a career in science to founding his own nonprofit and building a contemplative practice that has changed his life. Keep reading to learn about Dan and be sure to attend our next Hope and Joy session.

Dan Quinlan lives in Vermont, where he spends as much time as possible outdoors, a much needed “reminder of this beautiful and wonderful world that we are part of, ideas we lose track of so easily.” Dan, a former scientist and business executive, and now activist, has been married for 40 years and is the father of two ‘amazing people.’ At Third Act, he helps cultivate hope and joy through the monthly Hope & Joy Series that he originated and now facilitates. 

The youngest of six, Dan grew up in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, not far from New York City, which he frequented often for the music. His father served three years in Europe during World War II, fighting in some of the worst battles of the war. Over the years, his siblings served in the Peace Corps and Teacher Corps, set up and ran innovative programs in prisons, and led nursing and social work teams—roles that reflected the strong values handed down from Dan’s parents. Others in his extended Catholic family (55 cousins!) chose to serve in communities all over the world. For him, these wonderful people “walked the talk.” They served as a powerful influence. 

 

After deciding that he wasn’t equipped to set the world of rock ’n’ roll on fire, Dan made forays into becoming a recording engineer, which eventually led to degrees in engineering and acoustics, and a 22-year career at Bell Labs. For the first 15 years at Bell, Dan was a research scientist. He recalls this time—immersed in a scientific world filled with brilliant, quirky, and kind people—as a dream job.

Dan eventually moved over to the business side of telecommunications for a decade before leaving for the nonprofit sector, a transition sparked by a guest lecturer at Columbia University. Several months after 9/11, the speaker left his career as a Wall Street executive to join Acumen Fund, the first nonprofit to provide microloans as a way to combat global poverty. The story, beautifully told, got to Dan’s core, and he realized that he was in the wrong profession. He joined a nonprofit working to promote clean energy across the country, and in 2014, he founded Birch Glade Consulting, where he continues to provide climate-related consulting services to NGO clients and health care system leadership teams. If the global health care sector was a country, Dan notes, they would have the fifth largest carbon footprint in the world.

At the same time, Dan also founded SolaVida, a grassroots nonprofit whose mission is to “draw new constituencies into the crucial push for a deeper and faster response to the challenges of climate change.” SolaVida has helped launch groups of state-based health care professionals across the country who speak out in favor of equitable and clean climate policy. Over time, SolaVida’s work expanded into other communities, tailoring climate and clean energy advocacy to meet each community’s specific perspective. 

Dan has also done a lot of work around fossil fuel divestment and, as part of SolaVida, created divestor.org, the first website designed to help individuals understand divestment and how to do it. As an early promoter of divestment, Dan knew of Bill McKibben’s work, and when he heard about Third Act, he wondered, how can I help this wonderful idea? The Hope & Joy Series came out of a conversation with B Fulkerson and Melanie Griffith about people struggling with grief over the incongruously slow and inadequate response to the myriad threats of climate change.

 

It was Dan’s own struggle with the ‘failure to solve climate change’, notwithstanding years of worldwide effort, that led him to look for ways to address that grief. In 2019, he landed at the Center for Action and Contemplation and the Living School, a program grounded in Christian contemplative mystical traditions whose purpose is “to equip students to work together for a more just and connected world.” He left organized religion as a kid, but when he landed at the Living School, he found a very welcoming community built around a deep multi-faith perspective.    

As an alternative to the western growth-at-all-costs mindset, the Living School faculty focuses on the “middle way”—an idea found in all the mystical traditions that emphasizes ways to find equanimity and joy in a turbulent world. In the on-going and ever shifting challenge of trying to adopt a middle (aka ‘non-dual’) way forward, Dan has found a growing group of inspiring and wise teachers and fellow students who graciously provide their guidance and support.  

 

The spiritual journey that began with Dan’s grief and frustration is now a source of engagement and wonder, and contemplative practice is a life changing part of Dan’s daily life. The science is clear, he tells us, that all the mystical traditions hidden within the world’s great religions were on to big truths: meditation does wonders for the brain, the body, and how we navigate hard struggles. But the contemplative practice that matters to him is not one of navel-gazing. If meditating becomes a “personal salvation project” and we don’t engage in the world, then we are missing the essential part of becoming wise elders. Wise elders engage.

Having recently spent time working in impoverished communities in Costa Rica, Dan feels even more energized by the work of the Third Act community. Reading and contemplating aside, what really gives Dan hope and joy “are the fellow Third Actors and other activists who are even more resolute after November’s election. It takes compassion, fortitude, creativity and more to do that. I am very fortunate to be in the presence of, and learn every day from, such people.”