Nigeria and Malawi Country Director Byron S. Caldwell dies
Byron S. Caldwell Sr. Peace Corps, Agriculture Official
Byron S. Caldwell Sr., 78, a retired government official who had worked for the Peace Corps, a presidential board and the Department of Agriculture, died of complications from colitis Feb. 28 at Anne Arundel Medical Center. He lived in Bowie.
Mr. Caldwell, who had lived in the Washington area since 1972, was born in Denver. He served as a member of the Tuskegee Airmen in the Army Air Forces from 1944 to 1946.
He graduated from the University of Denver in 1948 with a bachelor's degree in psychology and did postgraduate work in law at Southwestern University in California and the University of California at Berkeley.
Mr. Caldwell had more than 20 years of experience as a counselor. From 1951 to 1965, he served as a probation officer in Los Angeles. In 1965, Mr. Caldwell worked for Litton Industries Educational Division, where he and his staff designed the Parks Job Corps Center near Pleasanton, Calif. More than 400 trainees took part the first year, among them boxing champion George Foreman.
From 1967 to 1972, Mr. Caldwell served as deputy and then regional director of the Peace Corps in Nigeria and country director in Mauritius in southern Africa. While in Nigeria, he co-authored the book "Two Years of Thought," which chronicled his Peace Corps experience there.
When he returned to the United States in 1973, Mr. Caldwell served as director of the international division of One America Inc. in Washington, a private consulting firm. In the mid-1970s, he was vice president of Warner and Warner International.
During President Jimmy Carter's administration, he served on the President's Council on Wage and Price Stability. He left government service at the end of Carter's term and returned in the mid-1980s as a budget analyst with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He retired in 1995.
Mr. Caldwell was a member of the Executive Board of Men of Tomorrow Inc., a California-based group that urged the inclusion of more African Americans in movies and television. He also was president of the Pasadena branch of the NAACP.
He also was president of the Black Minority Employees Organization and was a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.
Mr. Caldwell also was a member of Cornerstone Assembly of God in Bowie.
He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Ruth E. Caldwell of Bowie; three children, Anthony Caldwell of Somerset, N.J., Byron Caldwell Jr. of Stafford and LaJuana Caldwell of Bowie; two brothers; seven grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
