Greg Mortenson
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Greg Mortenson (born 27 December 1957) is a mountain climber, former United States Army medic, and humanitarian from Bozeman, Montana.
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[edit] Early life
From 1958 to 1973, Mortenson grew up on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro in northern Tanzania, where his parents were Lutheran missionaries.[1] His father, Irvin "Dempsey" Mortenson, was the founder and development director of the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center, Tanzania's first teaching hospital.[2] His mother, Dr. Jerene Mortenson, founded the International School Moshi.
Mortenson attended Ramsey High School in Roseville, Minnesota from 1973 to 1975. He served in the U.S. Army in Germany from 1975 to 1977, and received the Commendation Medal. He attended Concordia College, Moorhead from 1977 to 1979,[3] and later graduated from the University of South Dakota at Vermillion, South Dakota in 1983 with an Associate Degree in Nursing and a Bachelor's Degree in Chemistry.[4]
[edit] Transition to humanitarianism
In July 1992, Mortenson's young sister, Christa Mortenson, died from a life-long struggle with severe epilepsy on the morning she had planned to visit the cornfield in Dyersville, Iowa, where the baseball movie Field of Dreams was filmed.
In 1993, to honor his deceased sister's memory, Mortenson went to climb K2, the world's second highest mountain, in the Karakoram range of northern Pakistan. After more than 70 days on the mountain, Mortenson and three other climbers completed a life-saving rescue of a fifth climber that took more than 75 hours. After the rescue, he began his descent of the mountain and became weak and exhausted. Two local Balti porters took Mortenson to the nearest city, but he took a wrong turn along the way and ended up in Korphe, a small village, where he recovered.[5]
To pay the remote community back for their compassion, Mortenson said he would build a school for the village. After a frustrating time trying to raise money, Mortenson convinced Jean Hoerni, a Silicon Valley pioneer, to found the Central Asia Institute. A non-profit organization, CAI's mission is to promote education and literacy, especially for girls, in remote mountain regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Hoerni named Mortenson as CAI's first Executive Director.
In the process of building schools, Mortenson has survived an eight-day armed 1996 kidnapping in the tribal areas of Waziristan in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province, escaped a 2003 firefight between Afghan opium warlords, endured a fatwā by an angry Islamic cleric for educating girls, and received hate mail and threats from fellow Americans for helping educate Muslim children.
Mortenson believes that education and literacy for girls globally is the most important investment all countries can make to create stability, bring socio-economic reform, decrease infant mortality, decrease the population explosion, and improve health, hygiene, and sanitation standards globally.[6] He believes that the best way to "fight" terrorism is to build schools free of the Taliban's oversight (because he believes the Taliban promotes hatred). Because of this, several of the school's Mortenson's group built were destroyed by the Taliban, but the communities rebuilt them.[7]
Mortenson and David Oliver Relin are co-authors of the New York Times best selling book Three Cups of Tea.[8] During the serialization of the book on BBC Radio 4 in 2008, the BBC reported that Greg Mortenson had set up over sixty schools and as a result over 25,000 children had been educated.[9] Pennies for Peace is a program Mortenson launched to involve American school-children in fund-raising efforts for the schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan.[10]
[edit] Family
Mortenson has two surviving sisters, Sonja Rauen and Kari Theisen, and is married to Dr. Tara Bishop, a clinical psychologist, with whom he has two children.[11] Tara Bishop is the daughter of the late Dr. Barry Chapman Bishop, (1932–1994), a geographer and glaciologist. Dr. Bishop was a National Geographic Society editor, photographer of the historic 1963 American Mount Everest expedition, and chairman of the NGS Research & Exploration Committee.
[edit] Works
- Akiner, Shirin; Tidemen, Sander (1998). Sustainable Development In Central Asia:. Curzon Press. ISBN 0-312-21931-8.
- Jones, Karen; Mortenson, Greg (2005). The Difference A Day Makes:. New World Library. ISBN 1-57731-475-1.
- Canfield, Jack; (2005). Chicken Soup For The Peace Loving Soul:. Deerfield Beach. ISBN 0-7573-0312-9.
- Mortenson, Greg; Relin, David Oliver (2006). Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time. Penguin Group. ISBN 0-670-03482-7.
- Hanson, Kenneth; (2007). Himalayan Portfolios:. Charles Fields. ISBN 0-312-21931-8.
[edit] Awards
- 1975 US Army Commendation medal
- 1998 American Alpine Club David Brower Conservation Award
- 2002 Peacemaker Award from Montana Community Mediation Center
- 2003 Climbing Magazine "Golden Piton Award" for humanitarian effort
- 2003 Vincent Lombardi Champion Award for humanitarian service
- 2003 Peacemaker of the Year" Benedictine Monks, Santa Fe , NM
- 2003 Outdoor Person of the Year - Outdoor Magazine
- 2003 Salzburg Seminar fellow, sponsored by Microsoft
- 2004 Freedom Forum "Free Spirit Award" - National Press Club
- 2004 Jeanette Rankin Peace Award - Institute for Peace
- 2005 Men's Journal 'Anti-Terror' Award by Senator John McCain
- 2005 Red Cross “Humanitarian of The Year” Montana
- 2006 Golden Fleur-de-lis Award from Comune Firenze , Italy
- 2007 Medical Education Hall of Fame Award, Toledo , Ohio
- 2007 Rotary International - Paul Harris Award
- 2007 Mountain Institute - Award for Excellence in Mountain Communities
- 2007 The Dayton Literary Peace Prize
- 2008 Citizen Center for Diplomacy - National Award for Citizen Diplomacy
- 2008 Courage of Conscience Award
- 2008 Graven Award - Wartburg College, IA
- 2008 National Award for Citizen Diplomacy - Citizen Center for Diplomacy
[edit] Honorary Doctorate Degrees
- Concordia College , Moorhead , MN 2007
- University of South Dakota, Vermillion, SD 2007
- Montana State University, MT 2008
- Villanova University, PA 2008
- San Francisco University, CA 2008
- University of Washington – Bothell, WA 2008
- Lewis & Clark College, WA 2008
- Seattle University, WA 2008
[edit] Three Cups of Tea - Book Awards and Mentions
- Kiriyama Prize Nonfiction Award
- Time Magazine Asia Book of The Year
- Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association - Nonfiction Award
- Montana Honor Book Award
- Borders Bookstore Original Voices Selection
- Banff Mountain Festival Book Award Finalist
- Dayton Literary Prize Nonfiction Award – runner up
- People Magazine – Critics Choice
- Publisher’s Weekly – Starred Review
[edit] Notes
- ^ "American mountaineer fights Taliban with books, not bombs", John Blake, CNN International, March 3, 2008
- ^ "American mountaineer fights Taliban with books, not bombs", John Blake, CNN International, March 3, 2008
- ^ Concordia College, Moorhead, Minn. - Promoting Peace with Schools
- ^ Greg Mortenson Bio.
- ^ "Fresh Air", with Terry Gross,National Public Radio (NPR), February 7, 2002
- ^ "Another Way to stop Terrorism", Parade Magazine, March 5, 2006.
- ^ "Greg Mortenson's way to vanquish terrror", David Horsey, Seattle-Post-Intelligencer, April 12, 2008.
- ^ "Paperback Nonfiction Bestsellers", The New York Times, March 16, 2008
- ^ BBC Radio 4, March 14, 2008
- ^ "Pocket change for social change", Lora Pabst, Minneapolis Star Tribune, March 5, 2008.
- ^ Greg Mortenson bio, www.gregmortenson.com
