Dr. Geoffrey Godbey is a consultant, speaker, and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Management at Penn State University. The author of ten books and over 100 articles concerning leisure, work, time use, aging, recreation and parks, tourism, health and the future, he is the past President of the Academy of Leisure Sciences.
Previously a faculty member at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, Godbey has undertaken research for the American Association of Retired Persons, the US Forest Service, the National Recreation Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He has been a consultant to the National Science Foundation, State Government of Sao Paulo, Brazil, US Department of the Interior, as well as many advertising agencies and public and private recreation, park and tourism organizations. Godbey has testified before committees of the United States Senate and the President's Commission on Americans Outdoors. A frequent public speaker to diverse groups, he has given invited presentations in twenty-four countries.
He also advised and was the spokesperson for Hampton Inn’s Year of 1,000 Weekends campaign as well as serving on Hilton Hotel’s Leisure Time Advocacy Board. From 2002-2004, Godbey helped develop the LifeTrail, a series of stretching and strengthening stations for older adults, for Playworld Systems, Inc. Currently he an advisor on the future of leisure for The Next Thousand Years Project, sponsored by the Foundation for the Future.
Recently, he has conducted research on the impact of ethnic change on outdoor recreation, relations between health and use of leisure, and the impact of changing demographics on the tourism function of the National Park Service.
A book he co-authored with Dr. John Robinson entitled Time for Life — The Surprising Ways Americans Use Their Time was published in June 1997 by Penn State Press with an updated edition published in 1999. Godbey is completed a five city study of the relationships between use of leisure and health among older adults. He is also currently at work on a book about the impact of time on consumer purchasing behavior with Paul Nunes and Jim Wilson. Several of his books have been translated into Chinese, Korean, and Spanish.
Godbey has written for or been extensively quoted by a wide variety of academic journals and popular periodicals including American Demographics, Prevention, Modern Maturity, Issues in Science and Technology, Public Opinion, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Social Research, The Futurist, Journal of Leisure Research, Leisure Sciences, Annals of Tourism Research, Journal of Travel Research, Leisure Studies, The World and I, American Enterprise, Hospitality Research Journal, Parks and Recreation, World Tennis, and many others. His poetry has appeared in numerous outlets including The Nation.
Interviews and summaries of Godbey’s writings have appeared in a number of mass media outlets including US News and World Report, Newsweek, Time, Reader's Digest, The Economist, The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS Morning Show, New York Times, Glamour, Psychology Today, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, Modern Maturity, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, The Utne Reader, NBC Evening News with Tom Brokaw, CNN News, The ABC Evening News with Peter Jennings and many others.