Introductory Speaker Bios

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2023

NATIONAL SERVICE PARK LAUNCH

Introductory Speaker Bios


Glenn Blumhorst is a distinguished leader in the Peace Corps community, a peacebuilder and social entrepreneur at heart, and a stalwart champion of community and national service. Since 2022, Glenn has led the Peace Corps Foundation in its flagship $10 million campaign to establish Peace Corps Park on a National Park Service site near the U.S. Capitol and the National Mall.  Demonstrating his commit- ment to empowering Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) to achieve sustainable social impact, in 2022 he co-founded RPCV Ventures, a public beneficiary corporation, and serves as its chief executive officer (CEO).

 

Glenn earned his reputation as a strategic, transformative, and visionary leader during previous long-term tenures at two prestigious organizations – National Peace Corps Association (NPCA) and ACDI/VOCA – where he significantly increased the visibility, resources, effectiveness, and impact of both entities. As NPCA President and CEO for nearly ten years, Glenn led its historic transformation from struggling alumni association to dynamic community-driven social impact enterprise, increasing annual revenues from $1 million to $4.4 and a staff of 24. In his 18 years with ACDI/VOCA, he established and exponentially grew the Community Development practice area, leading expansive teams that designed and implemented a $310 million portfolio in global projects. Glenn began his illustrious career as a three-year Peace Corps Volunteer in Guatemala.

 

Volunteerism and community service are an integral part of Glenn’s professional activities. He serves on the Advisory Boards of National Museum and Center for Service, Museum of the Peace Corps Experience, Peace Corps Connect to the Future, and CorpsAfrica. He is a board director of TCP-Global – an RPCV-founded grassroots microlending organization, a member of Rotary Club of Capitol Hill, and a bilingual volunteer at Capital Area Food Bank distribution center. He is treasurer of the Joel Rubin for Congress campaign. Glenn holds graduate and undergraduate degrees from the University of Missouri, where he was the 2018 recipient of the

Faculty-Alumni Award, the most prestigious award given to a Mizzou alumnus. In 2021, he was honored with a Citation of Merit from the College of Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources.

 

A native of rural Slater, Missouri, Glenn is a global citizen, having lived, worked, or traveled in over 70 countries. He has resided abroad more than 20 cumulative years, has near-native Spanish language fluency, and is culturally agile. An aviation enthusiast, Glenn is a licensed private pilot with more than 500 hours as pilot-in-command of single- and multi-engine aircraft. He is a founding member of the Clearview Flying Club near Westminster, Maryland, and is an active member of Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. Glenn’s fellow Guatemala RPCV and wife of 40 years, Cathy Blumhorst, is a NIH nurse practitioner and hails from rural Waconia, Minnesota.

Dan Baker has more than 20 years of professional experience in both the private and public sectors. Prior to becoming President of NPCA, Dan was NPCA's Director of Programs and Business Development for two years, joining NPCA as the pandemic began in order to launch to support programs for evacuated Peace Corps Volunteers. Prior to NPCA, Dan worked in fundraising for Outward Bound, and was project director and senior technical advisor for youth development at IREX. Working with youth around the world.

 

At IREX, Dan led a $30M USAID-funded project working with political leadership in Guatemala and consulted with various other projects and practices to improve the organization's approach to working with youth around the world.

 

Dan's Peace Corps journey began in 1999, just after undergraduate school at Davidson College, when he received his invitation to serve in Bolivia. There he worked as a water sanitation worker and volunteer coordinator. After three years in Bolivia, Dan answered a call for continued volunteer service in Timor Leste, where he was a member of the first group of volunteers to arrive in the new country. 

 

After four years as a volunteer, Dan continued on to a 13-year career at Peace Corps in various staff and consultant roles, both in the field and in the Washington, D.C. headquarters office. His first field position was in Costa Rica where he was the Associate Director for a youth development and child protection project. He also notably worked in Ethiopia as the first Director of Programming and Training in that country, and where he oversaw a rapid expansion of the program, including significant work with USAID Feed the Future and PEPFAR programming. Following his tenure in Ethiopia, he served as the Chief of Programming and Training for the Africa Region in Washington, D.C., where he oversaw implementation of region-wide initiatives such as Let Girls Learn, Read for Life, and advances in the agency's diversity and inclusion efforts. Dan served with distinction during his time as Peace Corps staff, twice receiving the Director's Distinguished Service Award, and being selected to the agency's leadership development academy. 

 

Dan joined the NPCA team in 2018, first as a Board Director, and then as a staff program director. He was selected as President & CEO in January 2023. 

 

Dan and his wife Chris (RPCV Jamaica) currently live in Silver Spring, Maryland with their daughters and enjoy frequently visiting their southern roots in North Carolina and Georgia.

Julia Quanrud joined the ServeMinnesota team as Chief Executive Officer in April of 2023. Before joining ServeMinnesota, Julia led, built, and launched evidence-based AmeriCorps programs as Chief of Staff at Ampact, including Math Corps and Reading Corps during key years of growth in Minnesota and multiple other states. She also led Ampact as interim Chief Program Director for the first eighteen months of the COVID-19 pandemic, launching Contact Tracing Corps and the Emergency Response Initiative to help Minnesota respond to the crisis. 

 

Julia is a proud AmeriCorps alum, having served as an AmeriCorps VISTA member for two years, first with Minnesota Campus Compact and then with Minneapolis Public Schools. In her second year, she was elected President of the InterCorps Council (ICC), where she led a banner year for the organization, managing service days, events, and projects, while collaborating with fellow AmeriCorps members on the ICC’s vision, procedures, and reporting. 

 

Julia holds a Bachelor of the Arts from Macalester College as well as a Master in Public Affairs from the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs. At Humphrey, she received the 2022 Lloyd B. Short Award for Best Master's Paper on nonprofit crisis leadership and management. She also received the Presidential Leadership Award, George Stanley Arthur Prize for Civic Engagement, and the Harambee! Award for Multicultural Contributions on Campus at Macalester College. 

 

With a strong, lifelong commitment to service, Julia also serves on the board of FamilyWise and formerly as an advisory board member of the Minneapolis Fourth Generation Fund. She volunteers as an election judge and as a tax preparer with Prepare + Prosper.