As a long time social entrepreneur, Tyler's mission is improving the health of people and the sustained vitality of built, natural, food, and social environments. His work has historically focused in three areas:

• Advising mission-lead institutions in delivering with excellence, and coaching the persons that guide them in authentic leadership.
• Designing, sustaining, and measuring the impact of community collaborations that revitalize participatory democracy and effectively address complex population health, place-making and sustainability issues.
• Advancing public and private sector policies that simultaneously generate "total wealth" (natural, economic, social and human capital.) He has a current focus on healthy food systems, active community environments and health equity.

Tyler has consulted for leading organizations including: Kaiser Permanente, the YMCA of the USA, Ascension Health, the Public Health Institute, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and Active Living by Design of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He has advised multiple state-level "convergences" and community change initiatives.

Tyler's latest social venture is as founding Chairman of the Board of IP3 - Institute for People, Place and Possibility, which among many projects, powers The Community Commons

Among his roles over the years, Tyler was founding President and CEO of Community Initiatives Inc.; founding co-Chair of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's National Leadership Alliance; founding director of the national "Convergence Partnership" (a consortium of philanthropies and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention focused on healthy eating, active living and sustainable agriculture), NAC Chair of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Active Living by Design initiative, and most recently - as Founding Convener of Advancing the Movement, and as Founding Chair of IP3. He has been consultant to scores of state, regional, and local "healthy community" partnerships across the nation.

In 2007-2008, Tyler served as the first Executive Director of the Abraham Path Initiative, an international NGO founded at Harvard University. In 2001, Community Initiatives LLC incubated a healthcare technology start-up called Workforce Engage™ dedicated to driving clinical quality, patient safety and enhanced employee experience. CI grew and then sold this venture to a national healthcare informatics firm in 2004.

Before the fall of the Soviet Union, Tyler founded the Kuhiston Foundation, in Dushanbe, Tajikistan (Central Asia). Kuhiston was formed to help start Tajikistan's nation's national park system, retain its scientific and educational leadership, and grow its micro-credit finance institutions. Later it helped draft portions of the new Tajik constitution relating to international NGO's and became a leading force for healthy ecosystems in Central Asia. In early the 1990's he lead consulting services for the National Civic League, and served as founding Director of the U.S. Coalition for Healthier Cities and Communities -- a network of over 1,500 community partnerships and organizations.

Tyler is author of Healthy, Wealthy and Wise: Authentic Leadership and the 3rd American Century (2011, Naropa University),Tyler and with colleagues co-authored The Sustainability Framework, (2009 Kaiser Permanente), Healthy People and Healthy Places a 2006 report to leading philanthropies related to healthy public policy; Pioneering Healthier Communities, (YMCA of the USA 2006); Communities that Learn (Community Initiatives, 2004), Trendbenders (American Hospital Association, 2002), Facilitating Community Change (Grove International, 2000) and the Community Indicators Handbook (Redefining Progress, 1997).