John Perkins, the Co-Director of the Chogyam Trungpa Digital Library, will be retiring this month. We’d like to share our appreciation for John and to thank him for his substantial contributions to the Chogyam Trungpa Institute, and in a larger sense to the legacy of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche altogether.
John became involved with the establishment of the Chogyam Trungpa Institute in 2017. He has been a major force in the establishment of the Digital Library, working closely with every member of our team and with Vermilion Graphics, the company that designed the website for the Library. John guided us all in establishing a data model for our work, and pushed us to establish simplicity of design within standards of excellence. We consider ourselves beyond fortunate to have had his involvement in the project. In putting together CTI and the Digital Library, we have been graced with extremely talented staff and volunteers, who have come to this work because of their dedication to our mission and the importance of Chogyam Trungpa’s contribution to Buddhism in North America.
Previously John ran an international consulting company for cultural heritage institutions. He is an international authority on information and communications technology management in museums, archives, galleries and other cultural heritage memory organizations. He was the Executive Director of the Consortium for the Computer Interchange of Museum Information (CIMI), which was a group of prestigious museums, including the Smithsonian, the Getty, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and national museum networks in Canada, USA and Australia.
During this period, John also spent three years as Co-Director of the Shambhala Archives. John first came to the Archives in the 1990s, when a small group convened to establish an archive for Chogyam Trungpa’s work. John and his company designed the innovative and low-cost HVAC system for the Archives, which has been successfully controlling the climate there for more than thirty years now.
John is leaving us with important recommendations for the future of our work, and we hope to be able to tap his expertise as a consultant in the future. Lynn Friedman, the Co-Director of the Digital Library — and another very talented staff person — will continue to lead the team.
Please join us in wishing John all the best for his coming retirement. If you’d like to write to him, you can send well wishes to: library.support@chogyamtrungpa.com
Yours in the oceans of dharma,
The CTI Digital Library Team
Lynn Friedman
Warner Dick
Leandra Ziegler
Anne Seidlitz
Blaire Martin
Carolyn Gimian