What They Did for Their Country

In the waning weeks of the 1960 presidential campaign, Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy addressed University of Michigan students at 2 a.m. on Oct. 14.

“How many of you who are going to be doctors are willing to spend your days in Ghana? Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world?” Kennedy asked.

Then, on Jan. 20, 1961, President Kennedy delivered his inaugural address, one of the most famous speeches in modern history, in which he said, “To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required, not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”

As his 14-minute address was reaching its end, Kennedy spoke 20 words iconic of his presidency: “My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

On March 1, 1961, Kennedy signed an executive order establishing the Peace Corps on a pilot basis. Training began in June of that year, and according to the Georgia Tech Alumnus, included longtime Tech swimming coach Freddy Lanoue’s famed drownproofing technique.

The first group of 51 Peace Corps volunteers was sent to Ghana in August 1961 to serve as teachers. By the end of that year, more than 500 volunteers were working in Ghana as well as Chile, Colombia, India, Nigeria, the Philippines, St. Lucia, Tanzania and Pakistan.

To date, more than 200,000 volunteers have worked in 139 countries. According to the Peace Corps headquarters in Washington, D.C., 240 of them have reported that they were students at Georgia Tech, and the Institute ranks 24th among midsize U.S. universities in the number of volunteers produced.

March is Peace Corps Month, commemorating 50 years of service around the globe. Activities include an awards ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston on March 5, a panel discussion hosted by the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington on March 17 and a conference at the University of Wisconsin-Madison March 24-26.

Later in the year, senior volunteers will be saluted at the Lillian Carter Awards program at The Carter Center in Atlanta on May 18; a “Call to Service” discussion will take place at Harvard on Oct. 12; and a U.S. Institute of Peace panel discussion in Washington is scheduled for Sept. 23.

“As trite as it sounds, I found my Peace Corps service life changing,” said Peter Gess, CmpE 91, MS EnvE 94. “Although I was able to use many of the engineering skills I learned at Tech, I found the human side of environmental policy challenges the most interesting.”

Gess began his two years of Peace Corps service as soon as he earned his master’s degree and worked as an environmental awareness adviser in Wigry National Park, located in northeast Poland.

Gess said the park, in an area of the country known as the Polish Siberia, is famous for its many lakes of varying geologic age.

“It became a national park only a few years before I arrived, and my work was primarily to craft public outreach and education programs to allow nearby residents to buy into the need for the park,” Gess said. “I especially enjoyed working with children and authored an environmental activities book used by local schools.”

After returning to the United States in 1996, Gess earned a doctorate in public administration at the University of Georgia, where he helped launch the International Center for Democratic Governance.

“The Peace Corps instilled a love of international exchanges, and now I work in the field of international education. I also teach, focusing on environmental policy and management. I find my engineering background and my public administration and policy knowledge a powerful combination,” said Gess, the director of international programs and an assistant professor of politics at Hendrix College in Conway, Ark.

Mark Morgan, Psy 94, also served in the Peace Corps from 1994 to 1996. He volunteered as a high school math and science teacher in Lesotho in southern Africa.

“It was the best thing I’ve done in my life,” Morgan said. “It was amazing to see how fulfilling life can be with so little and how people manage to get by without all the things we think are necessities.”

There was no running water. There were no telephones or two-way radios. Morgan traveled by horseback or on foot.

“I had to hike in anything that I couldn’t get at my village store, so that really helped prioritizing luxury items. But it was a beautiful hike through the mountains that took me all day, then I’d hitchhike for another five hours or so to get to the capital,” he said.

“It was really a great experience that shaped who I am and a lot of my choices afterward,” said Morgan, who went to medical school at Mercer University after his Peace Corps stint and later deployed to Iraq as a doctor with a Marine Corps unit.

Today, Morgan is a family physician at an Indian Health Service clinic in Yuma, Ariz. He also runs a nonprofit medical Web site, soapnote.org.

“I’m so glad I joined the Peace Corps. I’ve worked for a lot of government organizations since then, but I can definitely say it is one of the most effective programs we have. I think it often has more of an impact on the volunteer than it does on the host country — definitely in my case,” Morgan said.

“The Peace Corps gave me time and a place to think and grow as a person,” Morgan said.

Michael L. Baird, MS ICS 71, PhD ICS 73, signed on with the Peace Corps during a time of war to avoid a place he did not want to be.

“I was morally opposed to the Vietnam War and chose to serve in this alternative assignment,” said Baird, who went to Lima, Peru, in 1970, to teach “what was to become computer science at a Stanford University spin-off MBA school.”

“I returned early upon establishment of the draft lottery and the drawing of a high number in order to pursue a master’s and PhD in information and computer science at Georgia Tech, which was my absolute passion and first priority in life,” said Baird, who now lives in Morro Bay, Calif.

“The Peace Corps experience reinforced my views of egalitarianism. This led to travel and study in Latin America and the support of some indigenous social causes. I worked in high-tech for 27 years and then retired early to enjoy nature and photography on the central California coast,” he said.

Adam Liberatore, MS ME 03, also served in the education sector. He and his wife volunteered in South Africa from 2005 to 2007 in a tiny Manyeding village on the edge of the Kalahari desert in the Northern Cape province.

“Our main goal was to help the teachers in four primary schools develop better curriculum and teaching techniques. We lived with a family and learned tradition and customs while we were there,” Liberatore said.

“Our amenities included electricity, but we had to fetch water from a local tap,” he said. “The simpler, slower life of an African village taught me much about patience, persistence and hard work along with the true difference between want and need.”

Liberatore, who studied at Georgia Tech Lorraine in Metz, France, worked for two years at an ultrasound startup in Pennsylvania before he and his wife signed up for the Peace Corps because of their desire to experience life in Africa.

“It seemed like a good time in life to do it,” said Liberatore, now a resident of Logan, Utah, working as a product design engineer for a medical device incubator.

Amanda Meng, GEML 08, also wanted to immerse herself in a different culture in a different country. Meng, of Atlanta, is a current Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic with plans to pursue a career in development policy.

“I wanted to experience life in a developing country, know the people behind the statistics and understand the successes and struggles more intimately,” Meng said. “Also, part of being a Peace Corps volunteer is teaching host country nationals what American culture and values are, so instead of politics and pop culture, my Dominican community members are exposed to a more personal and realistic expression of those values. That’s really important to me.”

Meng’s assignment, which ends in May, is at a high school in Imbert, a small town on the north coast of the island.

“I work with teachers to integrate IT into their lesson planning, with youth on various computer-based service learning projects and with local artisans on their Web sites and publications,” said Meng, one of 22 Tech alumni currently serving in the Peace Corps.

“The Peace Corps has taught me an infinite amount of things — how to properly eat a mango, clone a hard drive, dance the bachata and the reality of how institutions affect development. I plan to take my lessons and observations to graduate school this fall.”

Jing Li, IE 10, also is a current volunteer. She is teaching English to students in the third to 11th grades in Shevchenkove, located in the Kharkivs’ka Oblast in east Ukraine, through December 2012.

“After school, I work with students in English clubs to teach topics such as business English, healthy lifestyles, environmental awareness and creative writing. As a secondary project, I am providing my community with HIV/AIDS awareness education and working with my town’s cultural house to teach some children’s music and dance classes,” Li said.

While a Tech student, Li was a swimming star, setting six school records and earning an ACC Top 6 for Service award. She also spent a summer studying in Singapore and China.

Li, of Pleasanton, Calif., said she hopes to utilize the Russian language skills she is acquiring later in her life.

“After the Peace Corps, I would like to pursue a career in humanitarian logistics, which will give me the opportunity to combine my industrial engineering degree from Georgia Tech with my passion for working to change people’s lives around the world,” she said.

Tony Giarrusso, M CP 00, found fulfillment — and love — in the Peace Corps. He was assigned to Burundi, Africa, as a fisheries extension agent in 1993.

“I spent five months in Burundi, until we were evacuated due to civil war. We had the option to transfer to another country or return stateside and wait until the following year. My girlfriend, Janeane, a volunteer I met in training, and I decided to return home and start over. We were both assigned to Gabon, Africa, as fisheries extension agents and spent two full years there,” Giarrusso said.

“After two years in Gabon, we decided to extend our service for another year and subsequently were invited to Zambia, Africa, to start a fisheries program. We worked in Zambia for approximately 14 months,” said Giarrusso, whose total Peace Corps service extended five years.

“I really loved the Peace Corps. It is easily the most memorable thing I’ve done in my lifetime. And I was fortunate enough to experience three different African countries,” Giarrusso said. “Being a volunteer taught me many things about myself, and I am forever grateful for the experience. While I may have imparted some knowledge to people in Africa, it is I who really learned from them.”

After leaving Africa, Giarrusso and his girlfriend, Janeane Gilbreath, M CP 00, moved to his native Atlanta and enrolled at Tech.

“After graduation, we returned to Africa to visit old friends and to get married,” said Giarrusso, now the associate director of the Center for Geographic Information Systems at Georgia Tech. “It was the trip of a lifetime.”

Share your Peace Corps service stories in the comments section. For more information on the Peace Corps, visit peacecorps.gov. President Kennedy’s inaugural address is available at americanrhetoric.com.

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