Gregg Keesling’s conversation is frenetic and varied, his social mobility (and lung capacity) surely unparalleled.

He consoles felons just out of prison, talks sustainability with earnest young environmentalists and joshes about Purdue football over lunch with his fellow Rotarians.

“Gregg has this ability to engage people, to talk with all people,” said Jannett Keesling, his wife of 26 years. "Of course, he can keep going for hours. People ask me, ‘How do you cope?’ "

But joking aside, her husband is making a name for himself — here and across the nation — for his innovative approach to solving problems.

Last week, Keesling received an award for innovation from the prestigious, San Francisco-based Social Venture Network (an earlier recipient was Ben Cohen of Ben&Jerry’s).

Keesling was honored for his work with the nonprofit company he started in 2006, Workforce Inc. The Eastside company hires ex-offenders and helps them transition back to society while helping to improve the environment.

Workforce Inc. strips electronic equipment, mostly computers, and sells the electronic waste to recyclers.

The company’s plan — the only one of its kind in Indianapolis — addresses two of the nation’s most pressing concerns: what to do with felons newly back on the streets (about 5,000 a year in Marion County alone) and what to do with the toxic innards of discarded computers.

“Gregg is a visionary leader, and he’s really changing our society,” said U.S. Rep. Andre Carson, D-Indianapolis.

The next adventure

Now comes Keesling’s next big social venture: On Monday, Workforce Inc. will open what is expected to be the city’s most comprehensive recycling center.

“Plastics, glass, metal — they’re going to be taking everything,” said Rene Sweany, who runs an environmental affairs Web site and is the marketing manager for the Hoosier Environmental Council. “The fact (Keesling) incorporates a social mission with their environmental mission is just a win-win.”

Workforce Inc., with its $1.5 million annual budget, survives mostly on grants, public and private. But Keesling is trying to lessen its dependence on those sources by increasing sales. And that means recycling more junk.

“Our goal is 50 percent (of the budget) from business revenues,” Keesling said. “Last year it was 40 percent. (The cost of recycled) copper and plastic and everything is down because China stopped building.”

When Keesling started Workforce Inc., the price of recycled metals was high, mainly because China needed massive quantities to fuel a construction boom.

That has changed, and Keesling’s response has been to increase volume.

The recycling center is just one strategy.

Workforce Inc. branched out into house demolition, which Keesling sees as a growth industry as the city attempts to deal with a spate of abandoned homes.

A crew from Workforce Inc. took down a small, turn-of-the-century house on the Eastside, and the ex-offenders picked up another skill while salvaging some metal and choice poplar beams. The company recently bid on two more jobs.

“I know he’s done a lot of good,” said Nate Rush, executive director of Bethlehem House, a nonprofit social services agency that also assists ex-offenders, “but he seems more like an entrepreneur than a social worker.”

The making of the man

Keesling has long been an odd mix.

At Winchester Community High School in eastern Indiana, he hung out with the football team (he was an all-conference quarterback) and with the stoners.

As a teen, Keesling had huge, red hair and enjoyed marijuana so much that at age 19, when his weed pipeline in Muncie dried up, he moved to Jamaica. He lived there for a decade and met his wife there.

Today, at 52, Keesling’s hair is still red and thick, but he has a slight paunch.

He has a bohemian, liberal sensibility, which he attributes to his Quaker roots. He blames the world’s woes on rampant consumerism.

He has a Bob Marley poster on his office wall, but it’s Frank Zappa who elicits hushed tones from him.

Yet Keesling lives in a Geist suburb and plays golf. He’s a regular at the local Rotary Club’s weekly lunches, where he joins in reciting the Rotarians’ creed and, with the slightest prodding, talks up his latest endeavor.

“Gregg’s a promoter of the first order, a believer,” said Don Moreau, a retired Republican politician who’s a fellow Rotarian and longtime friend and mentor of Keesling’s. “He gets excited.”

Back at Workforce Inc., Keesling’s conversations are frequently heavy. Recently, he was touring his facility and came upon Shawn Lark, an ex-offender new to the program. Lark was stacking computers on skids.

Keesling asked the newbie about his life, and Lark’s voice cracked as he explained that his thoughts had turned lately to a stillborn daughter.

Keesling shook his head, touched Lark’s shoulder and softly told him to think of his other children. He gave Lark a strategy for controlling his emotions: “Just drop your voice. It works for me.”

Lately, Keesling has had to drop his voice a lot. In June, his son Chancellor, a specialist in the Army, committed suicide while serving in Iraq.

Hoping to draw attention to the problem of suicide in the military, Keesling is trying to pressure President Barack Obama into sending him and his family a letter of condolence.

“I do want you to let your White House contacts know I will not slink into the shadows,” he wrote last week to a congressional aide.

In the meantime, Keesling named the new recycling center after his son and forges ahead in the extroverted way of the master networker.

“Frank Zappa talked about ‘connecting the dots,’ meaning the musical notes on paper,” Keesling said.

“I make the same analogy, but my ‘connecting the dots’ means connecting people. I move at all levels — mayor, congressmen, ex-offenders. We’re all interrelated, interconnected. We’ve got to all be able to talk.

“Frank Zappa wanted to change the world.

“I want to change the world.”