About

Civic service leader, trustee, and author. Sixty years in leadership, advisory, and volunteer roles in government, enterprise, and non-profit agencies, emphasizing economic development and civic service.

U.S. Navy, destroyer operations officer. Journalist, India and Pakistan. Led first Peace Corps Volunteers in South Asia, 1961-63. Led first Massachusetts Service Corps Volunteers in Boston’s South End, 1965. Founding member, National Service Secretariat, 1966.

Legislative Assistant to Congressman Henry S. Reuss. Advance man in presidential campaigns of Senator Hubert H. Humphrey, 1964, and Senator Eugene J. McCarthy, 1968. Author, "Guide for Political Advancemen”, and "Secrets of Advancemanship" in Old Government/New People: Readings for the New Politics, 1971. Directed McCarthy Campaign Oral History Project.

Arthur D. Little, Inc., senior consultant for 27 years. Author, Road Salt, Drinking Water, and Safety: Improving Public Policy and Practice, 1974. Counseled development agency managers in South Asia, Middle East, and Central Europe. Faculty member, Arthur D. Little Management Education Institute.

Founding Trustee and Board Chair, Oxfam America. Trustee, World Learning (The U.S. Experiment in International Living) and its School for International Training Graduate Institute. Steering Committee, International Association for National Youth Service. Director, National Peace Corps Association.

Educated at Harvard College, Delhi School of Economics, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and Harvard Graduate School of Public Administration (now Harvard Kennedy School).

Featured Work

Willing to Serve: The Evolution, Experiments, and Legacies of America's Peace Corps

2027

Americans keep volunteering for long-term full-time civic service, despite our culture's romance with money and consuming. Willing to Serve traces (1) how the idea of full-time long-term service evolved, 1889-1961; (2) how my 30-Volunteer team tested it in various host institutions in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), 1961-63; and (3) the later careers of my teammates, how many academic institutions now sponsor service-learning programs, and how the Peace Corps inspired lasting legacies worldwide, for example UN Volunteers, 1962-2025. Service programs help to keep part of America's promise exceptional.

Other Works

  • "From Church Basement to the Boardroom: Early Governance and Organizational Development", Chapter 2 in Change not Charity: Essays on Oxfam America’s First 40 years

    2010

  • Road Salt, Drinking Water, and Safety: Improving Public Policy and Practice, BallingerPublishing Co., Cambridge MA.

    1974

  • Secrets of Advancemanship, from Guide for Political Advancemen, pp. 160-165, in Old Government New People: Readings for the New Politics, Alfred deGrazia et al, Scott, Foresman and Company, Glenview, Illinois.

    1971