ELY BOWDOIN KEY
Strategic Advisor | Trauma-Informed Certified Coach
U.S. Coast Guard Licensed Captain | Wilderness First Responder
Founder, Dialogue? Projects
Ely Bowdoin Key grew up between downtown New York City and rural Vermont.
Childhood moved between subways, basketball courts and city streets in New York, and woods, farms, BB guns and tree houses in Vermont. Even the contrasts weren't always what they seemed. The cattle and agriculture Ely knew in Vermont were connected to the other end of the food system he saw around him in New York's Meatpacking District.
Over time, the similarities became as important as the differences. Both places required awareness, adaptability and an understanding of the people and environment around you. Both offered tremendous freedom if you knew how to navigate them.
Ely learned early that discipline creates freedom.
Moving between those worlds has shaped the way he approaches people, places and problems ever since.
Ely attended high school at Friends Seminary in Manhattan and later studied Organizational Studies and Entrepreneurship at the University of Michigan. It was during those high school years that Dialogue? Projects first began.
That movement between places continued. Ely has lived and worked in very different places and environments, with work spanning entrepreneurship, strategy, operations, agriculture, renewable energy, film, theater, writing and other creative projects.
He has built companies, raised capital, led teams and worked everywhere from boardrooms and factories to farms and basketball courts.
The range is intentional. Ely is particularly interested in entering unfamiliar environments, asking good questions, understanding how things work and finding ways to become useful.
Dialogue? Projects continued developing alongside that work, bringing together business, writing, art and film, and creating opportunities to work with an expanding network of people across different projects and disciplines.
Over time, his own experiences with trauma and years of working with people and organizations brought something else into focus:
Organizations are made up of nervous systems.
Mental health is often the elephant in the room, whether the work is strategy, leadership, relationships or a creative project. Ely began studying human development, the sciences and trauma more deeply, eventually becoming a Trauma-Informed Certified Coach and bringing that understanding into his work with people and organizations.
Today, Dialogue? Projects brings those experiences together as a practice of strategic advisory, coaching, writing and interdisciplinary projects.
Ely lives and works in Midcoast Maine.
CREDENTIALS
University of Michigan
B.S., Organizational Studies | Entrepreneurship
Trauma-Informed Certified Coach (CTIC)
Moving the Human Spirit
Wilderness First Responder
Wilderness Medical Associates
U.S. Coast Guard Licensed Captain
OUPV
Additional coursework in Human Development, Anatomy & Physiology, Human Nutrition and Chemistry for the Life Sciences at the University of Maine.
Spanish proficient.