Craig Storti, a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, is an author and a trainer/consultant in the field of intercultural communications and cross-cultural adaptation. Eight of his books are on intercultural topics, while the two most recent—Why Travel Matters and especially The Hunt for Mount Everest—are for general audiences. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco, which offered a unique experience that was crucial in promoting the concept that there are several world views and expanding his love of travel and the intercultural field. When President Kennedy established the Peace Corps in 1961, he had three goals to provide technical assistance, discuss America with your host country nationals and bring the experience home and share it. Main themes in intercultural training include your values, beliefs and assumptions, which may be different from someone else’s, being more aware of your own culture when you travel and always being open minded.

Dr. Justin Quinn Olmstead is a historian for Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His most recent book “From Nuclear Weapons to Global Security: 75 Years of Research and Development at Sandia National Laboratories.” Dr. Robert Oppenheimer helped launch the Sandia Labs, which is an engineering laboratory for the nation’s nuclear deterrence. President Harry Truman was directly involved in setting up the Lab, whereas President Eisenhower initiated the Plowshare Program to explore the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and the Atoms for Peace program in 1957. Sandia supports global security by working with US agencies, the UN’s IAEA, and several of the United Nations treaties, such as the Non-Proliferation Treaty that focuses on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to avoid nuclear proliferation. Sandia has been “ hands-on” in helping mitigate the BP Oil Spill, Fukushima Disaster, Challenger explosion, the rapidly devastating climate crisis and the 9-11 destruction.

Skyler Badenoch, a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, is Executive Director for the Hope for Haiti organization. Hope for Haiti is a developmental organization focusing on poverty alleviation with an emphasis on women and children. It has 150-full time staff working on education, health care, clean water, and economic development programs in the southern region. Haiti, the size of Maryland, shares the Caribbean Island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. Although the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and the first free Black Republic, Haiti is culturally rich but has a tragic history of natural, economic and political disasters. Various Rotary International Clubs have assisted with clean water projects, whereas the United Nations UNICEF agency has collaborated in implementing nutrition and water sanitation programs. Haiti has several challenges, and often is depicted as a failing country, the reality is that many successful programs operate to improve the peoples’ quality of life.