Greater Cincinnati has traditionally provided a high number of applicants, said recruiter Greg Renda. In the three years that he's been recruiting here, he's had at least 11 applicants each trip, and about 75 percent of them have received consideration for positions, he said.
Peace Corps recruiters come to Ohio
Peace Corps recruiters look for volunteers here
By Megan Cotten
Post staff reporter
When Peace Corps recruiters come to Cincinnati Wednesday, they hope to find people with leadership experience, technical skills and a passion for helping others. In short, people like Gayle Linkletter and Mike Vogt.
Both are alumni of the organization started more than four decades ago by President John F. Kennedy.
Linkletter, of Clifton Heights, spent four years on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia in the late 1970s teaching French to junior secondary students. She found the place to be a startling combination of spectacular beauty and grinding poverty.
"There is also poverty in paradise," she said.
Vogt, of Walton, Ky., joined the Peace Corps in 1971 at the age of 23.
He worked for the Ministry of Agriculture on Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula helping farmers with crop selection and teaching them how to take advantage of newer technology.
"They did very well with what they had using methods that had been developed over centuries, but they were finding it very difficult to compete, in the international market, and we were there to help them with that," he said.
Greater Cincinnati has traditionally provided a high number of applicants, said recruiter Greg Renda. In the three years that he's been recruiting here, he's had at least 11 applicants each trip, and about 75 percent of them have received consideration for positions, he said.
Recruiters look to see whether applicants' technical skills match needs in other countries. Although applicants are asked for their regional preferences, they are not allowed to choose where they want to go. Flexibility is one attribute that weeds out candidates.
"For example, if they just want to go to Ghana, but they won't accept an assignment right next door in Togo, then we think they might not be joining the Peace Corps for the right reasons," Renda said.
Among many Peace Corps recruits, patriotism blends with personal considerations in the decision to commit several years to a life experience as unorthodox as it is enriching.
Renda said there has been a steady increase in applications since the terrorist attacks of 9-11. "It awakened a lot of Americans to pay attention to what's outside our borders and get in touch with other cultures," he said.
The organization has averaged increases of 370 volunteers nationwide each year since 2001, and saw 855 new volunteers in 2003. Currently, of 7,700 volunteers, 295 are from Ohio and 59 are from Kentucky. When the economy is hurting, the applicant pool grows, Renda said. Some college graduates figure Peace Corps experience on their resumes looks more attractive to potential employers.
Vogt said he still writes to friends in Costa Rica and has a great love for the country and its people.
"It was an opportunity to get to know people, on a really personal level, who lived in a different culture and had different points of view," he said
Linkletter heads a Greater Cincinnati alumni group for Peace Corps members. It meets every other month.
Her time in St. Lucia changed her forever, said Linkletter, now corporate communications manager of the Western & Southern Financial. "I consider the Peace Corps to be graduate school for life," she said. "You will go through the highest highs and lowest lows, and when you come out, you will be able to cope with anything."
