Management Team
William K. Zinke
Founder and President
William K. Zinke has been a management consultant since 1969 when he founded Human Resource Services, Inc. (HRS), relocated from New York to Colorado in 1990. His consulting work has been concentrated in the human resources and legal fields, with particular focus on strategic issues, in such areas as: recruitment/selection systems, organization and management development, performance management, team building, management succession planning, and strategic plan development/implementation.
In his various consulting activities since 1969, Mr. Zinke has contributed to the popularization of the term “Human Resources” and to an increasing recognition of the center-stage role of human resources management. As a result of these activities, he was asked in 1979 to organize the Human Resources Roundtable Group, which consists of the top HR executives in 55 major multinational corporations of North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific who meet twice yearly to discuss strategic issues relating to human resources management. HRS has organized international conferences on various aspects of human resources management in such places as Brussels, Moscow, Beijing, and various North American locations.
HRS has played a leadership role in confronting issues relating to aging, retirement and workforce planning. In June 2000, the firm organized an event in Washington, DC that attracted major media attention, Meeting the Employment Needs of the 21st Century: National Conference on the Economic and Social Impact of Demographic Change. In January 2001, HRS privately published a book, Working through Demographic Change: How Older Americans Can Sustain the Nation’s Prosperity. HRS organized a second event in June 2007 in Washington, DC, National Conference on the New Human Resources Frontier: Utilizing Older Workers for Competitive Advantage, to serve as the launching platform for the Center for Productive Longevity (CPL), a 501(c)(3) non-profit created and funded by HRS; a book was privately published by CPL in August 2008, Utilizing Older Workers for Competitive Advantage: The New Human Resources Frontier, with chapters contributed by leaders in the U.S. and Europe. The mission of CPL is to stimulate the substantially increased utilization of workers 55 and older who are ready and qualified to continue in productive activities, paid and volunteer.
Prior to founding HRS, Mr. Zinke was a practicing lawyer for more than 10 years as Assistant General Counsel of GTE Corporation, an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and an associate with the New York law firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. Thereafter, he served for three years as Vice President-Industrial Relations of the National Association of Manufacturers.
Mr. Zinke has given many talks and written numerous articles on various aspects of human resources management. He holds degrees from Amherst College and Columbia University Law School.
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James R. Hooks
Director of Marketing and Technology
James R. Hooks is Director of Marketing and Technology at the Center for Productive Longevity (CPL). Jim is responsible for the development and execution of CPL’s web initiatives, including the CPL website. He also facilitates strategic alliances for CPL, conducts market research, manages CPL’s information technology systems, and is substantially involved in the organization of the Spotlight on Entrepreneurship for Baby Boomers meetings.
Jim has worked closely with Mr. Zinke at Human Resource Services, Inc. (HRS) on numerous projects in the HR and legal fields, including the Survey on the Strategic Involvement of HR in Fortune 1000 Companies in 2011, which was sponsored by 25 major multinational corporations and conducted by Harris Interactive, and management of group activities.
Prior to his involvement with CPL and HRS, Jim held various management and marketing roles in the real estate industry, responsible for the development of regional and nationwide marketing programs for commercial, retail, and high-end residential properties, and in the management consulting field.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and is a member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).
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Marissa Lorenz
Executive Assistant–Development/Communications
Marissa Lorenz is Executive Assistant–Development/Communications at the Center for Productive Longevity (CPL). She assists William K. Zinke, President, in attaining funding development goals and managing external communications.
Educated as a linguist, Marissa’s professional career has been in education and non-profit management. As Program Director of a direct service organization, she oversaw all client services, volunteer management, fund development and community outreach. Within two years she was able to double the number of clients the agency served, more than double the school/community outreach impact, and increase funding revenue by nearly 20 percent over the previous three years.
Marissa is also a former public school teacher and adjunct professor. She most recently developed and implemented university curricula at the University of Colorado-Denver to train educators, counselors and human service providers on violence-prevention and trauma-sensitive response to families exposed to violence. She is dedicated to increasing awareness and effecting positive change on issues of social equity and justice.
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Board of Directors
Helen Dennis is a nationally recognized leader on issues of aging, employment, and retirement. She has conducted research on these issues for organizations such as The Conference Board, AARP, UC Berkeley, and the U.S. Administration on Aging. Nationally, she has lectured extensively to the business community, professional groups, non-profit organizations, and government agencies.
In her consulting practice, she has worked with over 10,000 employees planning for the “non-financial” aspects of their retirement including men and women who are senior executives, managers, factory workers, and university faculty and staff. As an author, she is the editor of two books, Retirement Preparation, and Fourteen Steps in Managing an Aging Work Force, and is a weekly columnist writing on successful aging for The Daily Breeze, a Media News/Hearst newspaper. Her most recent book, co-authored with Bernice Bratter, is Project Renewment: The First Retirement Model for Career Women.
A lecturer for more than 20 years at USC’s Andrus Gerontology Center, she has been the recipient of numerous awards for her teaching effectiveness and contributions to the field of aging.
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Madelyn P. Jennings is President of the McGregor Links Foundation and a founder of the Cabot Advisory Group. She is the retired Senior Vice President of Personnel at the Gannett, the largest newspaper company in the U.S., and publisher of USA TODAY. Previously, she was Vice President of Human Resources at Standard Brands Inc., and, earlier, held a number of executive positions at the General Electric Company.
Formerly Co-Chair of the Freedom Forum, she holds emeritus rank on the boards of the Freedom Forum and its affiliates, the NEWSEUM and the Diversity Institute. She also serves on the Defense Business Board (Department of Defense), George Washington University Business School’s Board of Advisors, and the boards of the National Museum of Women’s History, the Center for Productive Longevity, Yaddo (an artist and writers’ colony), National Academy of Human Resources Foundation, and The Women’s Center.
Previously, she was Vice Chairperson of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF and the American Press Institute, and served on the boards of Harte-Hanks Communications, Hanes Corporation, Personnel Decisions International, Monterrey Institute of International Studies, Sage Colleges, and the Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind.
She is a Distinguished Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources, and an Executive of the Year in the Society of Human Resource Management. She graduated from Texas Women’s University and was named a Distinguished Alumna there. She holds an honorary PhD degree from Russell Sage College.
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Dr. D. Bruce Merrifield has a long record in research and research management, currently President and CEO of the Pridco Management Company. He was formerly a Chaired Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Wharton School of Business from 1989 to 1994 and served as Distinguished Visiting Professor at Georgetown University from 1994 to 2000, teaching courses on entrepreneurship.
During the Reagan Administration, he first served as Assistant Secretary of Productivity, Technology and Innovation, U.S. Department of Commerce, from 1981 to 1986 and given the additional responsibility of Undersecretary for Economic Affairs from 1986 to 1988. During this Administration, Dr. Merrifield’s Office spearheaded landmark legislation to modify century-old antitrust laws, The CRADA Act of 1984, and the technology Transfer Acts of 1984, 1986, and 1989, which for the first time released tens of billions of dollars of advanced government-funded research for private-sector access.
Dr. Merrifield is a past member of the Advisory Board for the Binational Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation between the U.S. and Israel, which he helped initiate, and which he replicated in India, France, Finland, Chile, and Ireland. In India, the PACT program initiated the “Bangalore Software Valley.” He has served as Science Advisor to the Royal Jordanian Government and as a member of Visiting Committees for Research at MIT and Boston University. Currently, he is a member of the Visiting Committee for Physical Sciences at the University of Chicago.
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Judge William H. Webster has served as Chairperson of the Homeland Security Advisory Council since 2002. He was Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1987 to 1991 and served as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations from 1978 to 1987.
He also served as Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit from 1973 to 1978 and as Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri from 1970-1973.
Judge Webster has practiced law as a Partner in the Washington, DC office of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy since 2002 and continues to practice as a Retired Partner.
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William K. Zinke is President of the Center for Productive Longevity (CPL), a 501(c)(3) non-profit (status pending) created in 2006 with the mission of stimulating the substantially increased utilization of people 55 and older in productive activities where they are qualified and ready to continue adding value.
CPL was created by Human Resource Services, Inc. (HRS), a management consulting firm Mr. Zinke founded in New York in 1969 and relocated to Boulder, CO in 1990. HRS has had a leadership role in the human resources and legal fields through consulting activities that have encompassed organizing conferences and group meetings around the world. HRS organized two National Conferences in Washington, DC, one in 2000 and the other in 2007, relating to the impact of demographic change on strategic workforce planning, with books published after each that received wide distribution.
Mr. Zinke has been involved for more than 15 years in issues relating to an aging and shrinking workforce in the U.S. and other industrialized countries around the world.
