Mark G WentlingMark G. Wentling has 50 years of humanitarian service that began in 1967 as a Peace Corps Volunteer for five years in Honduras and Togo. His has visited over the past half century all 54 African countries. He says he was born and raised in small town in Kansas but made in Africa.He was Peace Corps Director in Gabon and Niger. In 1977, he began working for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Niger, and served as USAID's representative in Guinea, Togo/Benin, Angola, Somalia and Tanzania. He became a Senior U.S. Foreign Service Officer in 1988. He retired from USAID in 1996 but worked under contract as USAID's Senior Advisor for the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa and as a specialized consultant in Malawi, Senegal, South Africa and Zambia. He also served as USAID's country manager in Niger and Burkina Faso. In addition, he worked for Non-Governmental Organizations, CARE, World Vision and Plan International, in a number of African countries. In 2015, he moved from Burkina Faso with his family to Lubbock, Texas where he assisted Breedlove, a producer of humanitarian relief foods, and taught a course in international development at Texas Tech University. In 2016, he began working with USAID on several short-term contracts as a senior advisor to various African countries. He was honored in 2014 with Wichita State University's annual alumni achievement award. He is also a graduate of Cornell University and the National War College. He has published eight books and numerous professional articles. Besides English, he speaks French, Spanish, Portuguese, Ewe, Hausa and Kiswahili. He resides in Lubbock with his wife and one of his seven children. He wishes to be known as a good father, a humanitarian, an author, a teacher and as someone who has a good and generous heart. Read More Read Less