|
Ellen Freudenheim
|
...author, post-retirement expert
Ellen Freudenheim is a researcher and writer from Brooklyn, New York. Her most recent publication is Looking Forward: An Optimist’s Guide to Retirement (Stewart, Tabori and Chang, 2004), a 350-page non-financial lifestyle guidebook for baby boomers and their older siblings. |
|
She is the author of six published books, on eclectic topics ranging from a dictionary (Healthspeak: A Dictionary of America’s Changing Healthcare System, Facts on File, 1996) which Modern Healthcare magazine described as a “well organized, easily understandable guide to the health care maze,” to an award winning guidebook to Brooklyn (Brooklyn: The Ultimate Guide to New York’s Most Happening Borough; St. Martin’s Press, 2004), the third edition of which she co-authored with her teenage daughter.
Her 25-year career in communications has included organizing public education campaigns for non-profit organizations, and running a public relations department for Chemical Bank’s retail banking division where, in the late 1970’s, she coined the now-common term “fiscal fitness.” She was also an adjunct professor of public relations at New York University and co-founded Women in Health Management in New York, a networking and education organization.
Freudenheim holds two Masters degrees, one in public health from Columbia University, and another in social science from the University of Chicago. Her undergraduate degree from New York University is in Middle Eastern Studies. She and her husband live in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and have two grown children. She counts among her hobbies cooking, exercise, travel, and political action. Her reaction to turning 50, she admits, “was first disbelief, and then, to train for and to finish a sprint triathlon.”
Only half jokingly, she refers to Looking Forward as a “stealthy healthy aging book” because it offers an upbeat “how to” approach, drawing on the most recent academic health literature for insights on the health benefits found in activities such as volunteering, spiritual seeking, and working with children. Her publication guides readers to take care of not just the body, but one’s brain, social relationships, and attitude in the last decades of life.
Freudenheim has spoken at the annual meeting of Delta Kappa Gamma where her book on retirement won an award; at a meeting of non profit leaders on volunteerism, convened by Civic Ventures, Inc. of San Francisco, and at ALIROW, the Western states organization of adult learning. She has also recently done public speeches at the 92nd Street Y in New York, at meetings of librarians in both Scottsdale, AZ and Boston, and at the Jewish Federation in Cleveland. She did a three month book tour for Looking Forward that included a dozen book signings and media appearances.
Acknowledged as a new, authoritative voice on healthy aging issues, Freudenheim has been quoted in Time Magazine’s Generations special section (August, 2005). Her book has been recommended by the Wall Street Journal and Library Journal, among others. In 2005 she was a guest columnist on lifestyle issues for the Dow-Jones online newsletter Retirement Weekly.
Ellen Freudenheim is available for keynote speeches, panel discussions and workshops through the MasterMedia Speakers Bureau.
|
