Callahan says his wife of 48 years, mystery writer Barbara Callahan, their children Richard, John, Kevin and Paul Callahan and Liz Nicastro, and six grandchildren are his "highest priority." But, all support his leadership in good works.

Those works have changed the face of South Jersey, because he influenced countless others through example. Friends call him "the delegator," saying Callahan not only enlists disinclined volunteers, but convinces them that it was all their idea.

A defining moment in Jack Callahan's life was a three-day weekend in Philadelphia called Cursillo - a short course in Christianity which comprises spirituality and group dynamics. "It was then that I saw Jesus clearly," he says, "as a role model, a friend and a brother I could trust."

He helped organize the Cursillo Movement of South Jersey as well as Kairos, an ecumenical prison ministry which has been held in every New Jersey prison and spread across the nation.

Callahan began his professional life with a seven-year stint at RCA, Moorestown, followed by five years heading his own personnel recruitment and placement service. In 1971, he moved to the public sector, where he served as director of State Auditing in the Legislative Office of Fiscal Affairs and as deputy director of the Division of Youth and Family Services.

After his work in State government, Callahan founded the Callahan Group, Inc., a company that provides consulting services to Fortune 100 companies and others on planning, development, mergers and acquisitions. At the same time, he was an adjunct faculty member at Rutgers University and lectured at other prestigious institutions.

Twelve years later, Jack Callahan accepted an appointment as senior staff person responsible for special projects for the Senate Majority in the State Legislature, where he helped develop legislation aimed at urban revitalization and rehabilitation of imprisoned youth. He also initiated a study on the exhorbinate costs of capital punishment in New Jersey.

Callahan retired from the Senate in 1996 and returned to his consulting service, but always finding time for his countless pro-bono activities. He co-founded New Jerseyans for a Death Penalty Moratorium and chaired the New Jersey Justice Fellowship Task Force, which examined issues of justice in the correctional and judicial systems. Working with the Camden Diocese, he helped establish a Job Club for inner city youth.

Callahan chairs the Governor's Advisory Council on Voluntarism and Community Service and is New Jersey Co-Chair for the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.

He helps raise funds for infirm and retired Sisters of Mercy, the sisters who taught him, including the beleaguered Sister Anita, RSM. A Eucharistic minister, he provided weekly pastoral care to patients at Fox Chase Cancer Center, and he has met with his weekly prayer group for more than 30 years.

He is busy, not only at his church, St. Peter Celestine in Cherry Hill, but several Camden City parishes. He serves on the redevelopment committee of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception downtown. He delivers Christmas baskets for Sacred Heart in South Camden, and he and his sons helped rehabilitate the first of many abandoned homes there. And he served eight years on the board of trustees of the Jesuit Urban Service Team (JUST), which provides educational, medical and social services in North Camden.

Jack Callahan says, when his prayer life leads him to an opportunity for service, "I must be obedient to that call."

The indefatigable Callahan says that helping others is his attempt to follow Christ in an authentic way, adding that his philosophy, like St. Francis of Assisi's, is: "Preach the Gospel, and if necessary, use words."