Maurice Albertson, a professor and humanitarian whose research made significant contributions the creation of the Peace Corps, died at the age of 90 on January 11th.
Albertson’s contributions to the Peace Corps began in 1960 when, as director of the Colorado State University Research Foundation, he was given a contract by the State Department to put together a report on the advisability and practicability of the Point-4 Youth Corps.
Albertson’s report, which later became the book “New Frontiers for American Youth: Perspective on the Peace Corps,” led directly to the formation of the Peace Corps. Sargent Shriver gave Albertson the task of setting up a panel to determine the best way to set up the program and, within six years, the Peace Corps had more than 14,000 volunteers working in 55 countries.
In 1993, Albertson co-founded Village Earth, an organization to end global poverty by helping indigenous and rural communities access resources to achieve sustainable growth. The organization was based on Albertson’s 1960 report, as well as community level development work in places from inner-city Chicago to the Horn of Africa.
Albertson was a professor at Colorado State University, where he helped to develop the Department of Civil Engineering as a world leader in water research. He was given an honorary doctorate in 2006.
Read an interview with Albertson from August 2008.
Obituary from Colorado local news website
News post from The Philadelphia Inquirer
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