John Graham shipped out on a freighter when he was sixteen, took part in the first ascent of Mt. McKinley's North Wall at twenty, and hitchhiked around the world at twenty-two.

A Foreign Service Officer for fifteen years, he was in the middle of the revolution in Libya and the war in Vietnam. For three years in the mid-seventies, he was a member of NATO's top-secret Nuclear Planning Group, then served as a foreign policy advisor to Senator John Glenn. As an assistant to Ambassador Andrew Young at the United Nations, he was deeply involved in U.S. initiatives in Southern Africa, South Asia and Cuba.

By most measures, he was very successful. But something was missing.

In 1980, a close brush with death aboard a burning cruise ship in the North Pacific forced him to a deeper search for meaning in his life. Now out of the Foreign Service, he began teaching better ways of handling challenge and conflict. Since 1983 he's been a leader of the Giraffe Heroes Project, an international organization moving people to stick their necks out for the common good. The Project finds ordinary people acting with extraordinary courage on a broad range of important issues—then tells their stories to millions of others through the media, and in schools.

Graham is a familiar keynote speaker on themes of leadership, courage, meaning and service. He also leads Giraffe Heroes Project workshops, helping organizations, businesses and individuals handle their challenges more effectively.

Graham has done TV and radio all over the world and articles about him have appeared in major magazines and newspapers. He is the author of Outdoor Leadership, It's Up to Us (a mentoring book for teens), and Stick Your Neck Out—A Street-smart Guide to Creating Change in Your Community and Beyond. His memoir, Sit Down Young Stranger, was published in 2008. Graham walks his talk, including today as an international peacemaker, active in the Middle East and Africa.

He has a degree in geology from Harvard and one in engineering from Stanford, neither of which he ever expects to use.

Blog Entries by John Graham

Afghanistan -- Winning Lessons from Vietnam

Posted October 19, 2009 | 01:33 PM (EST)


There are many differences between our wars in Vietnam and in Afghanistan. There are also similarities we can't ignore, including the vital need for an indigenous government that commands broad-based popular support.

I know the Vietnam part of it pretty well. In Vietnam, I was a civilian officer in...

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How Do We Be Safe?

Posted July 31, 2009 | 11:33 AM (EST)


I saw the possibility of a just and peaceful world last week--at a conference on a mountain in Switzerland. The (second annual) Caux Forum on Human Security was no Davos nor G-8 Summit. No media were invited. While the 300 invitees included some global VIPs, the key criterion for being...

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The Health Care We Deserve

4 Comments | Posted July 10, 2009 | 10:58 AM (EST)


The givens: our country over decades has jerry-built a health care "system" that is unfair and inefficient. We pay far more for far less care than any other industrialized nation. And we have forty million people uninsured for whom a major illness can mean mortgaging a home, not sending a...

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When the Lights Came On

Posted June 25, 2009 | 12:02 PM (EST)


I just had cataract surgery. The doctor replaced the clouded lenses in my eyes with high-tech plastic. The results were amazing. In the supermarket I stood in shock, trying to absorb the real colors of vegetables and fruits. Outside, the Olympic mountains, 30 miles west, jumped into my front yard....

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Pirates and Poverty

Posted April 14, 2009 | 01:58 PM (EST)


It all worked out in Pirate Alley.

A brave American captain saves his ship and crew by putting his own life on the line. An untried American President deals with the crisis with wisdom and restraint, negotiating for days even as the standoff risks becoming an international embarrassment for...

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Stimulating

Posted February 3, 2009 | 06:49 PM (EST)


Where are you on the stimulus plan? Inevitably a move this complex has so many parts there's something for everyone to dispute. Both Democrats and Republicans agree that the massive package now before Congress should contain short-term measures, such as tax cuts and unemployment benefits, meant to immediately pump cash...

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