Q: Where did your most profound experiences come from that helped you establish what you do now?
A: When I got out of the service in Vietnam, where I served in counterintelligence, and saw the tragedy of war, I was able to take two years off in my mid-20s and travel around the world to about 60 different countries. I got from Turkey overland to Thailand, through Iran and Pakistan and India, some countries you can’t get into now.
I reflected on how important it is for people to frame their minds as global citizens and think about the world community as opposed to just the local one.
Q: You were involved in key developments and businesses here in Denver, from the D&F Tower restoration and the convention center to Trinity Grille, Wazoos and Spanky’s. That diverse array of experience is interesting, but why the hop around?
A: That’s just my social entrepreneurship. I had an abiding interest in the hospitality industry, and my career then had been in commercial real estate.
My mind works on more than one thing. Though we were successful in gluing the D&F Tower back together, I just had an interest in all these other areas. Sometimes, for good or bad, you have to try something else that’s interesting.
Q: When did you take stock and decide on a bigger picture with the Orbis Institute, and what are its objectives?
A: It was about 1996, through my involvement at the University of Colorado’s Presidents Leadership Class. I saw a missing piece in international critical thinking, international education. Orbis came from that.
Now we have programs that work with youths from high school to post-graduate studies, so that more young people can become global citizens. The best outcome, the endgame, is we can impact more young minds. Our graduates have a fire lit to make demonstrative change in their fields.
One young man, Mark Arnoldy, is just graduating from CU and was one of our first fellows abroad for six months and taught global affairs in a high school in Nepal. He’s now working on health issues there, preparing to attend medical school and was recently recognized for his work against malnourishment, using peanut butter infused with vitamins.
Edited for length and clarity by David Migoya.
