Garrett Gravesen, the CEO of the Global LEAD Program, has a unique story. At 19 Garrett became the youngest student body president ever at the University of Georgia. He then worked with Merrill Lynch in China, volunteered at an AIDS orphanage in Kenya, and wrote a book in Guatemala…all before he graduated from UGA (on time, mind you).
At his graduation ceremony, Garrett was the student commencement speaker, and his speech was rated #1 on Google for a number of years, followed by Hillary Clinton and John Stewart. Instead of moving on to the corporate world, Garrett took his experiences in Kenya, and turned it into a non-profit, HERO for Children. HERO is the only non-profit in the state of Georgia dedicated to quality of life improvement for children with HIV/AIDS. In 5 years, Garrett built HERO to a $1 million non-profit and stepped down from his post.
Garrett thought Harvard Business School was his next step but passed on the dream to start his second non-profit, the Global LEAD Program, a unique initiative to rally the nation’s youth around service abroad.
Garrett has been awarded as one of the “10 Outstanding Young People of the United States” (this has been won by JFK and Clinton) and as one of the “10 Outstanding Young People of the World.”
GG’s Words of Wisdom:
- Ask yourself, “What really is happiness to you?
- “I define wealth by happiness.”
- “ASK!”
- You’ll run out of time, before you run out of money.”
- Ask yourself, “Am I really doing the best I can with what I’ve been given?”
Garrett’s book recommendations:
Would you tell me where did you download your blog template ?
It’s a wordpress.org template, the theme is called Arras