Aaron Williams will be sworn in as Peace Corps director on Aug. 24, a spokesperson for the U.S. volunteering organization has confirmed. Williams, a former Peace Corps volunteer and current vice president for international business development with RTI, was unanimously confirmed Ag. 7 by the U.S. Senate.
President Obama selected Williams in July as the 18th Peace Corps director.
"Aaron Williams embodies and exemplifies Sargent Shriver'sand President Kennedy's and President Obama's hope and faith in the potential and power for good that Americans of all ages have in them, waiting to be tapped," Sen. Harris Wofford (D-PA) said at Williams's July 29 confirmation hearing. "Look at his accomplishments for our country and for development, education and peace in the world in these last decades."
Williams brings extensive international assistance experience, including long-term assignments in Honduras, Haiti, Costa Rica, Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean islands region. As a senior manager at the U.S. Agency for International Development he attained the rank of career minister in the U.S. Senior Foreign Service.He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and he serves on the advisory board of the Ron Brown Scholar Program, as well as on the boards of directors of Care and the National Peace Corps Association.
"I firmly believe in the strength of grassroots organizing," Williams said during his confirmation hearing, "and the impact of creating sustainable health, education, and environmental practices one community at a time."
During his presidential campaign, Obama pledged to double the size of the Peace Corps by its 50th anniversary in 2011. Check out David Lepeska's article on how to become a Peace Corps volunteer.
