2009.01.18: January 18, 2009: Headlines: Staff: Obituaries: Headquarters: History: COS - India: PCOL Exclusive: India RPCV Jane Albritton writes: Memories of Peace Corps Architect Maury Albertson
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2009.01.18: January 18, 2009: Headlines: Staff: Obituaries: Headquarters: History: COS - India: PCOL Exclusive: India RPCV Jane Albritton writes: Memories of Peace Corps Architect Maury Albertson
- 2009.02.14: February 14, 2009: Headlines: Staff: Obituaries: Headquarters: History: The Coloradoan: Anthony A. Frank, interim president of Colorado State University, writes: Honor professor Maury Albertson with your actions Thursday, February 19, 2009 - 10:44 am [1]
- 2009.02.15: February 15, 2009: Headlines: Staff: Obituaries: Headquarters: History: The Coloradoan: Maury Albertson's goodness spanned globe Monday, February 16, 2009 - 1:27 pm [1]
- 2009.01.13: January 13, 2009: Headlines: Staff: Obituaries: Headquarters: History: The Coloradoan: Peace Corps architect Maury Albertson dies in Colorado Sunday, January 25, 2009 - 6:08 am [1]
India RPCV Jane Albritton writes: Memories of Peace Corps Architect Maury Albertson
As Maury recounted his story, his voice was still filled with the wonder of it all. He remained amazed that everything moved so fast. That Sargent Shriver could put together a team that included Bill Moyers and Warren Wiggens. That "Sarge" had the stamina to have lunch with every legislator in DC to get the money to fund JFK's vision and Maury's plan. Colorado State became one of the first training sites for volunteers, and Pauline became the first director in Pakistan. Check it out. In 1961 a Farsi-speaking woman running the show in Muslim Pakistan where the first group included three Black volunteers. Martin Luther King made his "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963, and it took until 1964 for the Civil Rights Act to bar discrimination in employment on the basis of race and sex. I came to understand that the pivotal role he played in the development of the Peace Corps was just part of his bigger, personal vision for Peace on Earth. Just weeks before he died at 90, he had been in Jakarta, Indonesia, teaching a doctorate-level class on sustainable development. Who was this guy? I have tried to come up with an image for Maury. Here’s the best I can do. I think he was like a big planet with its own gravitational pull. Even from a distance, it looks bright in the night sky. But what happens when you look more closely with a stronger telescope? Why there’s more. The bright planet - like Jupiter, maybe - has color and 63 moons orbiting around it. And no matter how close you get, the vision never gets out of focus, even as it turns - with apparent joy - in multiple motions. That would be Maury.
India RPCV Jane Albritton writes: Memories of Peace Corps Architect Maury Albertson
Thoughts on conversations Maury Albertson who died at 90 on January 11, 2009
By the time I met Maury Albertson, he was in his upper 80s and I was pushing 60. I had called him and asked to come over for a visit because everyone said that if I was doing anniversary books on the Peace Corps, then I had to "talk to Maury." Who was this guy?
I confess, I had always been skeptical of the claim that the "Peace Corps started at Colorado State, you know." I had heard that refrain ever since I moved to Fort Collins, Colorado, in 1995 with Peace Corps India, 67-69, on my vita. Being a Texan, I am used to tall tales and hometown pride. So I would smile sweetly and say, "Really, how interesting." But I wondered: So why is CSU not in the lore like the University of Michigan? or Albertson, a professor of engineering, not mentioned in the same breath with Shriver?
Still, I wanted to talk to local celebrity Maury Albertson. At the least, I thought I might learn a little something I could put on the website I was creating for the Peace Corps at 50 story project.
On that first meeting, I rang the bell and waited. Maury Albertson at 87 moved a little slowly, but he was still tall and very animated. His blue eyes twinkled, and his smile was quick. We sat down for that first conversation, and we were off for a brief, three-year run of conversations about a career dedicated to promoting sustainable, community-based development around the world. His contribution to the founding of the Peace Corps is part of a seamless dedication to bottom-up international work that makes sense on the village level.
Caption: Albertson teaching students on irrigation project in 1957. Photo: Colorado State University Archives
I wish I could say that Albertson’s story of how he got wind of the "4-Point Youth Corps," an idea tacked onto the Mutual Security Act in the Eisenhower administration, and how he pestered the powers in Washington, DC, until they gave him the contract to do the feasibility study has been well documented, but it hasn’t. Here’s just a little taste of it.
Back in the 1950s, there was a lot of money going into water resources, building dams and canals. That was also the time when the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, SEATO, was set up in Bangkok, Thailand. Maury Albertson, an hydraulic engineer, was recruited by USAID to develop a graduate school to train Thai engineers in water resource management. In 2009, the SEATO Graduate School of Engineering, now the Asian Institute of Technology, will celebrate its 60 anniversary. Maury started it and ran it and got nations to fund it. Who knew?
Maury’s work with engineering grad students and his regular USAID trips to DC allowed him to go fishing in a stream of information concerning international development. One day the 4-Point Youth Corps swam by. He hooked that little fish and with the enthusiasm that was his trademark, quickly swept others (most notably Pauline Birky-Kreutzer and Andy Rice) into a whale-sized project. The prize was a paltry $10,000 government grant to do a feasibility study (10 countries on 3 continents, please). But Maury knew it would be wonderful.
While the State Department dithered, Maury went out and raised money to start the study. He tapped the Rosenthal Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation for money: $30,000 in all. Dean Rusk liked what he was doing and convened a conference. In her memoir, Peace Corps Pioneer, Pauline (who died last August at 93) noted that General Hershey, Director of Selective Service; Colin Bell, executive secretary of the American Friends Service Committee (Quaker); and Lewis Carliner, representing the United Auto Workers, were among those who participated.
Caption: Albertson in 1982. Photo: Colorado State University Archives
By the time that Maury and his team actually got the contract in 1960, they were well on their way, improvising as they went to make the most of a shoestring budget. Maury combined his trip to the SEATO Graduate School of Engineering with stops in Pakistan and India. A member of the CSU philosophy faculty, Dr. Manuel Davenport, had been invited by Albert Schweitzer to attend a workshop in Africa. So the grant paid his airfare, and he did the study on that continent. Pauline did the study in Latin America and the Caribbean (an amazing story in itself, detailed in Peace Corps Pioneer).
Slow motion morphed into warp speed: 1960, the grant; preliminary report, February 1961; 400 volunteers in the field by the fall of 1961. The report itself became a book: New Frontiers for American Youth: Perspective on the Peace Corps.
As Maury recounted his story, his voice was still filled with the wonder of it all. He remained amazed that everything moved so fast. That Sargent Shriver could put together a team that included Bill Moyers and Warren Wiggens. That "Sarg" had the stamina to have lunch with every legislator in DC to get the money to fund JFK’s vision and Maury’s plan.
Colorado State became one of the first training sites for volunteers, and Pauline became the first director in Pakistan. Check it out. In 1961 a Farsi-speaking woman running the show in Muslim Pakistan where the first group included three Black volunteers. Martin Luther King made his "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963, and it took until 1964 for the Civil Rights Act to bar discrimination in employment on the basis of race and sex.
As I continued my conversations with Maury over the next three years, I came to understand that the pivotal role he played in the development of the Peace Corps was just part of his bigger, personal vision for Peace on Earth. Just weeks before he died at 90, he had been in Jakarta, Indonesia, teaching a doctorate-level class on sustainable development. Who was this guy?
I have tried to come up with an image for Maury. Here’s the best I can do. I think he was like a big planet with its own gravitational pull. Even from a distance, it looks bright in the night sky. But what happens when you look more closely with a stronger telescope? Why there’s more. The bright planet—like Jupiter, maybe—has color and 63 moons orbiting around it. And no matter how close you get, the vision never gets out of focus, even as it turns—with apparent joy—in multiple motions. That would be Maury.
Caption: Albertson at his home in Fort Collins.
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| Director Ron Tschetter: The PCOL Interview Peace Corps Director Ron Tschetter sat down for an in-depth interview to discuss the evacuation from Bolivia, political appointees at Peace Corps headquarters, the five year rule, the Peace Corps Foundation, the internet and the Peace Corps, how the transition is going, and what the prospects are for doubling the size of the Peace Corps by 2011. Read the interview and you are sure to learn something new about the Peace Corps. PCOL previously did an interview with Director Gaddi Vasquez. |
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