ABOUT THE AUTHOR

After his government service at the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Energy, Defense, and State, Dr. Patrick Mendis returned to academia. He served as a visiting professor of economics and public policy at the University of Pittsburgh’s Semester at Sea program during the 2004 spring voyage before joining Norwich University to teach in its MA in Diplomacy program.

Prior to joining the U.S. State Department, Dr. Mendis was a graduate military professor through the University of Maryland for the U.S. Department of Defense in the NATO and the Pacific Commands, for which he received the University of Maryland’s Stanley J. Drazek Teaching Excellence Award. He taught MBA/MPA and undergraduate international relations courses at every major military installation in England, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain, and Turkey. As a visiting professor, Dr. Mendis also taught in China through the University of Maryland and in the former Soviet Union through the University of Minnesota.

At the State Department, he received the Meritorious Honor Award and the Benjamin Franklin Award for his interagency leadership, the management of international educational and cultural programs, and UN negotiations during the Clinton and Bush Administrations. He is a member of the governing board of the USDA Graduate School – an appointment by the Bush Administration.

Before joining the Maryland faculty in 1997, he served as a lecturer in international relations and a visiting scholar in applied economics at the University of Minnesota since 1990. Dr. Mendis also worked at the Minnesota House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the World Bank, and the United Nations.

For his eclectic contributions and accomplishments, he was recognized with numerous honors, including the Hubert H. Humphrey Alumni Award for Outstanding Leadership, the University of Minnesota President’s Leadership and Service Award, and the Governor Harold Stassen Award for United Nations Affairs.

He earned his BS degree in business administration and economics (First Class Honors) from the University of Sri Jayawardenepura in Sri Lanka, an MA in international development and foreign affairs from the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, and a PhD in geography/applied economics from the University of Minnesota. He completed his postdoctoral training at Columbia, Harvard, and Yale Universities.

Dr. Mendis is a fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science, a life member of the Society for International Development, and listed in Who’s Who in America. He serves on the editorial boards of Energy & Environment in the United Kingdom and The Public Manager in the United States.

As an AFS exchange scholar from Sri Lanka, Dr. Mendis graduated from Perham High School in northern Minnesota. He and his Scandinavian wife, another AFS exchange student from Willmar, Minnesota to Japan, met at the Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. With their two teenage children, they live in the Washington D.C. area but consider humorist Garrison Keillor’s mythical "Lake Wobegon" in Minnesota their home where "all the children are above average."

“[The book] is confirmation to those who know Patrick Mendis of his extraordinary devotion to the best of the American ethos he adopted – and enriched – in an impressive career since arriving as a student from Sri Lanka. His book deserves a wide American audience.”

~ Professor Lincoln Bloomfield at MIT

Former U.S. State Department and White House’s National Security Council official

Author most recently of Accidental Encounters With History

“Patrick Mendis – born in Sri Lanka, educated in America, now truly a citizen of the world – has an infectious enthusiasm for the diversity he has experienced.”

~ Ambassador Harlan Cleveland

Founding Dean, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs

University of Minnesota and former U.S. Ambassador to NATO

“Dr. Mendis’ book is a multi-disciplinary analysis that is both stimulating and eminently readable.”

~ Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala

Senior Adviser to the President of Sri Lanka

“The analysis radiates his firm belief in the importance of freedom and democracy to human progress.”

~ Dr. Michael B. Graham

Vice President

“This book certainly helps us to reach the shore of new creation where globalisation will be a blessing for all.”

~ Professor M. S. Swaminathan

President

Pugwash Conferences on Science & World Affairs

“America's fundamental illiteracy about globalization represents a grave threat to its continued positive unfolding. . . Patrick Mendis' book helps much to combat that ignorance by providing a traveler's-eye-view of how this unprecedented change wave is reformatting the planet.”

~ Professor Thomas P.M. Barnett

Baker Center Distinguished Scholar at the University of Tennessee

“Patrick Mendis is a master teacher, an excellent writer, and a world citizen. . . . Read it for education; read it for fun; read it to help a good cause; whatever you do, read it.”

~ Professor Shelton L. Williams

President, The Osgood Center for International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University

Author of Summer of 66