Michael R. Wenger, of Mitchellville, Maryland, is a Senior Fellow at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, the nation's pre-eminent research and public policy analysis institution focusing on issues of race. He also is an adjunct professor in the Department of Sociology, specializing in race relations, at The George Washington University.

Mr. Wenger came to the Joint Center in October, 1998, after serving as Deputy Director for Outreach and Program Development for President Clinton's Initiative on Race. At the Joint Center he was the founder and Director of NABRE (Network of Alliances Bridging Race and Ethnicity), an initiative of the Joint Center. NABRE linked approximately 200 race relations/racial justice organizations across the country for the purpose of facilitating communication and interaction, both electronic and face to face, among leaders of community-based racial reconciliation projects. The network's mission is to cultivate and nurture local leaders as they build and sustain alliances that break down and transcend barriers of race and ethnicity in all sectors of civil society and in communities across the country. Mr. Wenger also has served as the Joint Center's Acting Vice President for Communications and Acting Vice President for Governance and Economic Analysis.

Mr. Wenger served for more than 16 years as the States Washington Representative for the Appalachian Regional Commission, a Congressionally-funded agency charged with promoting economic development in the 13-state Appalachian region of the United States. In this capacity he represented the Governors of the 13 Appalachian states on policy and legislative matters relating to their membership on the Commission.

Before coming to Washington, D.C., Mr. Wenger held several policy-making positions, including Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Welfare and Commissioner of the Department of Employment Security, in the administration of West Virginia Governor John D. Rockefeller IV. He began his career as a journalist and public school teacher in New York City and then held leadership positions in the West Virginia anti-poverty program and with the City of Charleston, WV. He is the co-author of Window Pane Stories: Vignettes to Help You Look At and Beyond Your Experiences, a frequent speaker on race relations, and the author of numerous articles on race relations and on rural economic development.

Mr. Wenger was born in New York City and educated at Queens College of the City University of New York, where he was a leader in the civil rights struggles of the early 1960s. He is married and has three grown children and four grandchildren.

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