If you haven't heard of Greg Mortenson, he's a world-famous local of Bozeman. He's been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize twice for his work establishing schools in Afghanistan, and has founded 131 so far. I got the chance to see him speak at the Brick Breeden Fieldhouse on campus this past Wednesday, and it was pretty interesting. The talk was free to the public, which I thought was pretty cool. I took somewhat extensive notes, because I was somewhat delirious from not getting enough sleep for about a month and from the busy day I'd had already. I decided to take pictures of my notes and post them, because I think they are my best account of what happened. Mortenson told a lot of stories about his work, and invited two other people to come up on stage and tell their stories.
Mortenson's book "Three Cups of Tea" is internationally recognized and today is required reading for all military officers, after General Petraeus read it and found it to be profoundly helpful in his outlook on the "conflict" in Afghanistan. He told Mortenson the three most important lessons he learned from the book were to listen, to respect, and to build relationships.
Something I found most intriguing about Mortenson's work is that when he started his efforts, he was completely broke. He got the opportunity to talk at an elementary school, and the kids took interest in his cause and one told him he'd donate the contents of his piggy bank. From there, Mortenson started the "Pennies for Peace" program, which has exploded into schools internationally and raised millions of dollars.
Yes, Greg Mortenson said it; Bozeman is awesome!
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