Spreading Jane Goodall’s Message
LIVE PRESENTATIONS BY JOHN CROCKER
As a college student, I had the privilege of spending eight months with Dr. Jane Goodall in Tanzania studying families of chimpanzees in the wild. I remained a close friend of hers over the past fifty years. At our last meeting, coinciding with her 90th birthday, she expressed her strong desire to have her message continue to be widely spread after she’s gone. Unfortunately, that time has arrived. I can’t imagine a more brave, intelligent and articulate human being who has brought hope and empowerment to so many people across the globe.
I have created a presentation with video clips and photos of Jane Goodall’s ground-breaking work with the chimps and highlights of what she taught me over the years. During the past 8 years, the presentation has been enthusiastically received by a wide range of audiences. The talk is interactive, and I encourage questions from the audience. I intend to continue to spread her message to colleges, high schools, libraries, dinner events, and other venues. I am not doing this for financial gain and will not charge a speaking fee (only possible shared expenses for significant travel costs). I live in Seattle and travel between Vancouver BC and Portland often.
Here is some of the commentary I have received since I began giving the presentation:
“One can’t help but wonder if Dr. Crocker’s ability to connect so quickly with, and engage an audience could be attributed to his deep appreciation of the common bond that exists between human and non-human primate behavior. He left his audience (just like his readers) not wanting this moment to end.”
— A.S., Emory University Faculty member attending the talk at the Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta
“Attendance for your talk broke records and the reviews were outstanding.”
— R.K., physician and organizer of medical group speaker series.
“I just read the student comments about the workshop and they were unanimously positive (your presentation exceeded expectations).”
— L.C., Faculty member describing Stanford Human Biology seniors assessing my presentation.
“I continue to hear compliments and appreciation from both staff and students about your presentation. Students really valued the connections you made to them as teenagers and where they are in their lives.”
— S.S., High school teacher, Beaverton, Oregon.
Upcoming Events
~ coming soon ~
John Crocker’s Bio
John Crocker, MD is a retired family physician after thirty-five years of practice in Seattle, Washington. He was born and raised in Portland, Oregon and attended Stanford University where he met Dr. Jane Goodall. He received his MD from Case Western School of Medicine in Cleveland.
Dr. Crocker is a popular speaker at high schools, colleges and universities, and other educational venues on primate behavior and has written for the Huffington Post about lessons learned from our closest living relatives. He published “Following Fifi” (Pegasus) with forward by Jane Goodall in 2018. The book describes his eight months of work as a student with Dr. Goodall studying wild chimpanzees at her study site in Tanzania, East Africa.
He has served as the ship physician on Semester at Sea, served as volunteer island doctor for the island of Barbuda in the Caribbean and was medical chief of the Northgate Group Heath Medical Center, serving 30,000 patients in Seattle.
He and his wife raised two boys and lives in Seattle.
