Charles F. “Chic” Dambach

Chic Dambach’s wide ranging career includes President of the Alliance for Peacebuilding, President of the National Peace Corps Association, and Chief of Staff for Congressman John Garamendi. Together with Peter Yarrow, he led the Operation Respect program to address bullying, ridicule, and violence in schools. His memoir, Exhaust the Limits, the Life and Times of a Global Peacebuilder, features a lifetime of service and successful initiatives for peace. He is a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow and adjunct faculty at both Johns Hopkins University and American University. His career began as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Colombia.

He is chairman of the Mali Affinity Group, and he serves on the governing boards of the Institute for Economics and Peace, the International Peace and Security Institute, Alliance for Peacebuilding, Middle East Peace Working Group, Future Symphony, and the CityLit Project. The “Dambach Award for Service to the Literary Arts” was created in his honor by the CityLit Project in Baltimore. He was a national champion kayak racer and served as an official for canoe and kayak competition in the 1988, 1992 and 1996 Olympic Games.

He has a BA degree from Oklahoma State University which he attended on an athletic scholarship, as well as an MBA degree from Wake Forest University. Oklahoma State recently recognized him in its Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame, and he is in the Hall of Fame in his home town of Worthington, Ohio.