Doe Hentschel, Ph. D.
Founder and Lead Facilitator
Dr. Doe Hentschel believes that learning never ends. For more than 50 years she has been modeling the way for adults looking to learn, grow, and discover new possibilities. Whether teaching in a university classroom, consulting in a corporate boardroom, or facilitating a workshop in a community center, Dr. Doe inspires transformation.
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After an impressive academic career, Doe wasn’t ready to slow down. In 2001, she joined forces with Leadership Greater Hartford to launch the Third Age Initiative™, a program the UN recognized as the premier model for engaging older adults. That spark ignited a 25-year encore career in nonprofit community leadership, where her innovative programs touched countless lives.
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Doe’s creative spirit and reputation as an empathetic, gifted teacher and innovative program administrator didn’t go unnoticed. In 2013, she earned a place in the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame, one of only a few practitioners among the scholars and researchers to be so honored. In 2016, she received the Community Leadership Preceptor Award—an honor previously reserved for top executives.
Along the way, she shared her wisdom through more than 50 publications and celebrated her 80th birthday by publishing her first book, Look, Ma! No Hands! Life’s Lessons Learned the Hard Way, a lively memoir that captures her unique take on life and leadership.
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Doe has now embarked on her newest adventure, delivering programs that address a passion that began in her youth, evolved throughout her careers and has become her mission, or as she says, her “work-to-do in life, that cannot be done in less than a lifetime.” WISH Workshops and Retreats for the Woman in Search of Herself support women as they rediscover who they are at their core.
Doe sees life much like putting together a jig saw puzzle without a picture on the box. She motivates women to create their puzzle themselves, figuring out how to connect the pieces we are given or that we find ourselves along the way, to create a picture/a life that we love. She believes strongly that self-efficacy is the key to making our wishes come true. And she is convinced that there is cause for celebration in every moment of our lives. Her own story of living fully, productively and joyfully in spite of a health record that she says has been accurately characterized as a “train wreck,” is a reminder that it’s never too late to dream big, embrace change, and write the next exciting chapter of your life.
