Founder and Director of Asia America Initiative. Best-selling author, a nominee for both the Pulitzer Prize and American Book Award for History. Over three decades as a historian, journalist, soldier, an advisor in the U.S. Congress, Mr. Santoli has directly participated in seeking solutions to some of the most complex issues in the Asia-Pacific region including Cambodia, Afghanistan, Thailand, Tibet, Taiwan, and Burma. He is an Adjunct Professor at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C., teaching the practicum of “Development for Peace” and is the director of the Institute’s Center for Culture and Freedom. He earned a martial arts black belt in Tae Kwondo.

Served as Deputy Secretary of State from 2001-2005. He is currently President of Armitage International Associates LLC. He had been engaged in a range of worldwide business and public policy endeavors as well as frequent public speaking and writing. Previously, he held senior leadership and negotiating positions in the Department of State and Defense, and the Congress. Richard was awarded the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service four times, the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Award for Outstanding Public Service, the Presidential Citizens Medal, presented by the President to citizens who have performed exemplary deeds of service, and the Department of State Distinguished Honor Award.

Director of Asian Studies and C.V. Starr Distinguished Professor of Southeast Asia Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Served as the National Security Advisor to the Vice President of the United States from 1991-1993. Until 2007, he was an advisor to the President of the World Bank and the Executive Vice President of the Bank’s International Finance Corporation.

An entrepreneur in high-tech industry or business & technology based in Falls Church, Virginia. She assisted her father, Dr. Lannie Elliott, in economic development in areas of armed conflict. She served on the Staff of White House Personnel, was a Staff Assistant to Senator Larry Pressler, and for the Presidential Campaign of Dr. Benjamin Carson.

A Foreign Service Officer working the Agency for International Development (USAID). Mike was captured by the North Vietnamese, and held as a prisoner of war (POW)from 1968-1973. He returned to Vietnam to volunteer working for the Montagnards until the fall of South Vietnam in 1975. He later earned his Bachelors from Oregon State University and a Masters degree from the University of the Philippines.

Was born in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. Luis is a former US Marine Corps member of the Combined Action Platoons in Vietnam. After his military service he attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He served as the liaison for the Hispanic community for the Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio. He lives with his wife, a retired public school teacher, in the San Diego, California area.

Dr. Stern earned her Ph.D. in Education at the University of Berkeley, California. She taught in San Francisco, Bay Area, public schools for close to 20 years. Her husband, MD Thomas Stern, was a professor of Surgery at Stanford University. Together they created the non-profit One World Institute in Berkeley California, with offices in the Philippines where Dr. Yolanda Stern is still the CEO & active partner of Asia America Initiative in-field programs.