JOHN GRAHAM

John Graham shipped out on afreighter when he was sixteen, took part in the first ascent of Mt. McKinley’sNorth Wall at twenty, and hitchhiked around the world at twenty-two.

A Foreign Service Officer forfifteen years, he was in the middle of the revolution in Libya and the war inVietnam. For three years in the mid-seventies, he was a member of NATO’stop-secret Nuclear Planning Group, then served as a foreign policy advisor toSenator John Glenn. As an assistant to Ambassador Andrew Young at the UnitedNations, he was deeply involved in U.S. initiatives in Southern Africa, SouthAsia and Cuba.

By most measures, he was verysuccessful. But something was missing.

In1980, a close brush with death aboard a burning cruise ship in the NorthPacific forced him to a deeper search for meaning in his life. Now out of theForeign Service, he began teaching better ways of handling challenge andconflict.  Since 1983 he’s been aleader of the Giraffe Heroes Project, an international organization movingpeople to stick their necks out for the common good. The Project finds ordinarypeople acting with extraordinary courage on a broad range of importantissues—then tells their stories to millions of others through the media, and inschools.

Graham is a familiar keynotespeaker on themes of leadership, courage, meaning and service. He also leadsGiraffe Heroes Project workshops, helping organizations, businesses andindividuals handle their challenges more effectively.

Graham has done TV and radioall over the world and articles about him have appeared in major magazines andnewspapers. He is the author of Outdoor Leadership, It’s Up to Us (a mentoring book for teens), and Stick Your Neck Out—AStreet-smart Guide to Creating Change in Your Community and Beyond. He walks his talk, including today as aninternational peacemaker, active in the Middle East and Africa.

He has a degree in geology fromHarvard and one in engineering from Stanford, neither of which he ever expectsto use.