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Norwalk Campus Library

Norwalk ESOL 1302:The Other Wes Moore

About the Author

Wes Moore is a youth advo­cate, Army com­bat vet­eran, promis­ing busi­ness leader and author.

Wes grad­u­ated Phi Theta Kappa as a com­mis­sioned offi­cer from Val­ley Forge Mil­i­tary Col­lege in 1998 and Phi Beta Kappa from Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­sity in 2001 with a bachelor’s degree in Inter­na­tional Rela­tions. At Johns Hop­kins he was hon­ored by the Mary­land Col­lege Foot­ball Hall of Fame. He com­pleted an MLitt in Inter­na­tional Rela­tions from Oxford Uni­ver­sity as a Rhodes Scholar in 2004. Wes was a para­trooper and Cap­tain in the United States Army, serv­ing a com­bat tour of duty in Afghanistan with the elite 1st Brigade of the 82nd Air­borne Divi­sion in 2005–2006. Wes spear­headed the Amer­i­can strate­gic sup­port plan for the Afghan Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion Pro­gram that unites for­mer insur­gents with the new Afghan Gov­ern­ment. He is rec­og­nized as an author­ity on the rise and ram­i­fi­ca­tions of rad­i­cal Islamism in the West­ern Hemi­sphere. A White House Fel­low from 2006–2007, Wes served as a Spe­cial Assis­tant to Sec­re­tary of State Con­doleezza Rice. Fol­low­ing his time at the White House, Wes became an invest­ment pro­fes­sional in New York at Cit­i­group, focus­ing on global tech­nol­ogy and alter­na­tive invest­ments. In 2009 he was selected as an Asia Soci­ety Fel­low. Moore was named one of Ebony magazine’s “Top 30 Lead­ers Under 30” for 2007 and Crain’s New York Busi­ness’ “40 Under 40 Ris­ing Stars” in 2009.

Wes is pas­sion­ate about sup­port­ing U.S. vet­er­ans and exam­in­ing the roles edu­ca­tion, men­tor­ing and pub­lic ser­vice play in the lives of Amer­i­can youth. He serves on the board of the Iraq Afghanistan Vet­er­ans of Amer­ica (IAVA) and founded an orga­ni­za­tion called STAND! through Johns Hop­kins that works with Bal­ti­more youth involved in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. Wes was a fea­tured speaker at the 2008 Demo­c­ra­tic National Con­ven­tion in Den­ver and addressed the crowd from Invesco Field. He has also spo­ken at the National Foun­da­tion for Teach­ing Entre­pre­neur­ship (NFTE) Busi­ness Plan Com­pe­ti­tion, South­ern Regional Con­fer­ence of the National Soci­ety of Edu­ca­tors, the edu­ca­tion reform ses­sion of the third annual Race & Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion in Amer­ica con­fer­ence, and the first 9/11 National Day of Ser­vice and Remembrance.

He has been fea­tured by such media out­lets as Peo­ple Mag­a­zine, The New York Times, The Wash­ing­ton Post, CSPAN, and MSNBC, amongst oth­ers. Wes’ first book, The Other Wes Moore, will be pub­lished by Spiegel & Grau, an imprint of Ran­dom House, in late April 2010.

Wes Moore was born in 1978 and was three years old when his father, a respected radio and tele­vi­sion host, died in front of him. His mother, hop­ing for a bet­ter future for her fam­ily, made great sac­ri­fices to send Wes and his sis­ters to pri­vate school. Caught between two worlds—the afflu­ence of his class­mates and the strug­gles of his neighbors—Wes began to act out, suc­cumb­ing to bad grades, sus­pen­sions, and delin­quen­cies. Des­per­ate to reverse his behav­ior, his mother sent him to mil­i­tary school in Penn­syl­va­nia. After try­ing to escape five times, Wes finally decided to stop rail­ing against the sys­tem and become account­able for his actions. By grad­u­a­tion six years later, Moore was com­pany com­man­der over­see­ing 125 cadets.