Peter Tuddenham On Using Systems Thinking In Practice

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About Peter

Peter David Tuddenham was born in London, England. At 12 years old he sang in Mahler’s 8th symphony under Lenard Bernstein in the Royal Albert Hall. At 15 as an air cadet, he flew to Singapore with the Royal Air Force. He qualified as a glider pilot at 16.  He was commissioned as a 2Lt in the British Army Corps of Royal Engineers after attending the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He completed courses on Systems Behaviour, Industrial Relations and Computers and Computing with the UK Open University in 1978-1980. After completing his Army service, he moved to the USA in 1980. He obtained a BS degree in Business from Regis University in Denver, Colorado in 1982. He went on to study Systems Design at Saybrook University in California with Bela Banathy.  As an executive in residence at Arizona State University Center for Ethics he studied the deregulation of the telephone industry. He was a guest faculty at the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania from 1988-1990 co-teaching a developmental course called “Creative Problem Solving” using concepts from a design and creativity program created by Buckminster Fuller and Steven Archer at Southern Illinois University and organization and social studies at Brunel university in England. From 1992-2000 he was adjunct faculty with the University of Maryland and George Mason University teaching Internet, Distance Learning, Project Based Learning and Evaluation to future and current educators and teachers. From 1991 he has designed and led online programs on personal, group and organizational development. 

He worked in recruitment, compensation, and organization structuring for the civilian workforce of the US Army before moving to a business career in Human Resources, Issue Management and Corporate Public Affairs with the Adolph Coors Company and then Arizona Public Service. Moving east to Washington DC as a Senior Systems Scientist with Allen Corp, later called CAE Link, he consulted to senior leaders on systemic change and teaching and learning transformation supported by new technologies; clients included the US Department of Defense and other US Government Agencies. 

He cofounded the College of Exploration in 1991. This largely all online not-for-profit educational project has developed programs on co-exploring leadership, environment, and technology. Nearly 20,000 educators, teachers and students have completed online workshops on ocean, earth, pedagogy, and personal development since 1991. 

With colleagues from the National Geographic, the National Marine Educators Association, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California, Berkeley, he helped co-organize the USA ocean literacy initiative in 2004. This has evolved to become a global program with UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission sponsorship for the Decade of Ocean Science 2021-2030.  In 2012 he helped co-found the European Marine Science Educators Association. In 2014 he established a small business, CoExploration Limited in the UK.

 In 2015 he became Vice-President for Education at the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS). He went on to serve as President of ISSS for the yearly term of 2018-2012. He is currently a trustee for the American Society for Cybernetics.

He is currently developing a transdisciplinary appreciation of the need for ocean, earth, water, self-health knowing and systems literacy.

Peter resides with his wife Kristina Bishop in Northern Virginia where they juggle work, play, travel and interest in the lives of six children and their spouses and fourteen grandchildren.