BOB WALSH: 
Humanitarian, facilitator, speaker, and citizen diplomat

Ordinary people can do extraordinary things

As Steve Rudman wrote in his book Who the Hell is Bob? The Man Behind The Magic, "Fiction would have rejected Bob Walsh out of hand."

Bob was born near Boston in 1940, attended a liberal arts college in Ohio, and began his varied career as a radio and television producer in Boston and Los Angeles. He went to Seattle with Bill Russell in 1973 to help run the Seattle Supersonics NBA franchise, became a sports agent, and then evolved into a promoter, businessman, humanitarian, back-channel ambassador and citizen diplomat.

Bob is adept at:

• forging connections between communities and individuals
  
• partnering with key people and groups to build support for extraordinary endeavors
  
• organizing to promote peace and provide aid/assistance to those in need 
  

He has traveled to three dozen countries, coordinating events and forming nonprofits that have brought medical care, nutritional support, education and community investments worth nearly $1 billion--to over seven million people.

His resume includes such diverse accomplishments as:

• Coordinating disaster relief for earthquake victims inside the Soviet Union during the Cold War
  
• Supplying the Caucasus region with medical equipment and medicine during the height of a civil war
  
• Partnering with Russians to shoot a capsule into space from Russia to the U.S., in what the New York Times called "the greatest publicity stunt of the 20th century" 
  
• Expanding the Final Four with the invention of "March Madness" for college basketball
  
• During the Cold War, organizing the largest sports, arts, and cultural program in the history of the U.S. and USSR-the Goodwill Games 
  
• Serving as Founding Chairman of OneWorld Now!, an innovative nonprofit after-school program bringing education and travel to underserved children 
  
• Negotiating, on behalf of the U.S., the return of two orbiting satellites allegedly stolen by the Russians
  
• Program director of the first all-talk station in the country 
  
• Facilitating a successful international peace climb of the Tibetan side of Mount Everest, led by Jim Whittaker (the first time Americans had ever climbed with Soviet and Chinese communists, and the first time Soviets were allowed into Chinese territory in over 30 years) 
  
• Creating the first U.S. vitamin company to penetrate the previously untapped Soviet market (and one of the first private businesses in the former Soviet Union) 
  
• Facilitating hundreds of millions of dollars in investments in former Soviet countries
  

Tying together these sometimes seemingly disparate enterprises and achievements is a single thread: Bob finds it irresistible to help. His passion for extensive entrepreneurial projects and sweeping humanitarian ventures is driven by extreme generosity.

Bob attributes his success as an instrument for change to many fortunate attributes, the most remarkable of which is an attitude that simply refuses to entertain thoughts of obstacles or impossibility. Bob offers powerful motivational speaking about cultivating this mindset.

Bob is currently at work organizing One World 2011, a reprise of the Goodwill Games designed to meet today's challenges toward world peace.

Bob's persistence, courage, and empathy, expressed through a wide range of political and social efforts, have earned him the Martin Luther King, Jr. Award from Coretta King, the "Supreme Soviet Award" from President Gorbachev, the World Affairs Council Award, recognition as an Honorary Citizen of the Republic of Georgia, and special recognition from Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

Buy Bob's Book

WHO THE HELL IS BOB? 
The Man Behind the Magic

This is the rollicking story of one of America's little-known but most successful entrepreneurs “riding the wild dream” as Norman Cousins called it. Author Steve Rudman uses wry and witty prose to relate seemingly preposterous tales about Bob and his astonishing antics. More than one influential billionaire, a prominent atheist and famous cardinal, the KKK, CIA, and KGB, several U.S. presidents, a host of sports stars, and Hollywood celebrities are just a few of the characters who play parts in this fast-paced nonfiction novel. Hundreds of pictures feature Bob with some of the most prominent figures and events of the twentieth century.

Click here to purchase the book.