Wednesday, March 26, 2003

By: Stephanie L. Kirby

Wilmington – Michael Rhoades, from Wilmington NC, is one of the six North Carolinians who won an American Marshall Memorial Fellowship in 2003.

The American Marshall Fund of the United States selected 63 emerging American leaders from 18 states to receive the prestigious Marshall Memorial Fellowship for intensive study of Europe in 2003. The 2003 American Marshall Memorial Fellows will spend three weeks in Europe examining European institutions and exploring European and transatlantic economic, political and social issues.

Three groups of 21 Fellows are traveling to Europe in March, May, and October, 2003. Rhoades went with the first group and will be returning to the U.S. April 6. They met in Washington for orientation and background meetings and then traveled to Brussels, Belgium for high level briefings on the European Union, NATO, and transatlantic issues. They then split into smaller groups to go to cities in northern, southern, and central Europe for one-on-one meetings, site visits, hands-on experiences, and formal briefings, gaining a variety of perspectives on key issues affecting Europe and the transatlantic relationship. The small groups will reunite in either Paris or Berlin at the end of the three weeks for final briefings and an evaluation session.

Rhoades said the time he spent with the European Parliament gave him a great opportunity to hear the concerns of the EU concerning the possible U.S./Iraq war. “Regardless of how we stand in our support for a war with Iraq, we must now deal with the global consequences of the failure to find a diplomatic compromise at the UN. The UN, NATO, and the EU institutions have been destabilized at a crucial time in their history and development,” said Rhoades.

The goal of the Fellowship is to educate the next generation of American leaders on the importance of the transatlantic relationship and to equip them with the knowledge to work with European counterparts on a range of international and domestic issues. The Fellows were selected through a competitive review process and come from politics, government, the media, business and the non-profit sector.

Rhoades is a native of Rapid City, SD, and a graduate of Augustana Lutheran College in Sioux Falls, SD, where he received his bachelor’s in psychology and minor in religion. He received his MBA from the Cameron School of Business at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington in 2001.

After moving to Chicago, Il, in 1994, Rhoades worked to help adults and children transition back to the community after decades of living in the Illinois state institutions with no contact with the outside world. He moved to Wilmington in 1996 and has worked in Long Term Care, Inpatient, and Home Health and Rehabilitation before opening Learning Perspectives Inc.

Learning Perspectives provides outpatient rehabilitation services for children who suffer from chronic developmental or neurobiological disorders in partnership with schools and area mental health programs.

Rhoades also spends much of his time as a state lobbyist and advocate for programs that support people with disabilities.

For more information, email Michael Rhoades at mtrhoade@learningperspectives.com or to find out more information about Marshall Memorial Fellowships go to: http://www.gmfus.org/