After scanning the list of individuals in this column, I realized that women were underrepresented. This is the second in a series of women whose contributions made a difference. An American journalist, social activist and Roman Catholic, “On May 1, 1933,” The New York Times writes (July 29), “during the height of the Great Depression, Day stood in Union Square...

After leaving her nursing job in an Ohio department store to join the Navy Nurse Corps in World War II, Alene Duerk (pronounced “Dirk”) planned on a short term of duty to her country. “I didn’t go into the Navy for a lifetime, I went in for six months,” Alene B. Duerk told an interviewer in 2016, when she was...

At a small private cemetery located on the grounds of St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire there stands a striking granite headstone marking the grave-site of a man who not only attended and taught history at the exclusive prep-school, but served as the state’s governor and later as U.S. ambassador to England. Carved into the granite are words that...

What makes a hero? This guy, Nicholas Winton, a British-born stockbroker who never told anyone for fifty years, about his heroic effort in organizing the successful “escape of 669 mostly Jewish children from Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II,” The New York Times writes (July 1). A did that ranks alongside those similar to Oskar Schindler and Raoul...

There are entrepreneurs and then there are business people who become entrepreneurs by building a business while helping others… at the same time. That’s a thumbnail sketch of Blake Mycoskie, this month’s ethical hero who has given away 10 million pairs of shoes to needy children. And that’s just the beginning, as this profile from The New York Times describes....

I have never posted the same “Ethical Hero” twice. Howard Schultz is the exception. Starbucks Chairman, President and CEO Howard Schultz has never shied away from controversial issues. Nor has he shamelessly pandered to his customer base. He has, in fact, embraced two words that are in short supply today: Common Sense. In 2011, frustrated with Washington politics, Schultz sent...

In his book, One Patient at a Time – A Medical Center at Work, Milton Zisowitz writes, “The battle for health and life in a great hospital, revealed in a dramatic case histories of people like…the young intern, only three months out of medical school, whose courage and split-second thinking saved the life of a fifty-year-old lawyer in an emergency...

This is an amazing story not only of duty and courage, but of faith. Last week, President Obama stood in the East Room of the White House to tell an amazing story of courage and duty by an Army Chaplain in the Korean War. The President was there to bestow the nation’s highest military award, The Medal of Honor posthumously...

Every year since 1984, “The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation” has held its annual “Evening of Peace” dinner where they honor an individual with “The Distinguished Peace Leadership,” and/or “World Citizenship” award. For four out of the last five years, I have been fortunate to be invited to an event that continues to open my eyes to issues and individuals who...

By now most of the world has heard about the heroic, Pakistani human rights activist – 14-years-old, no less – who stood up to the Taliban to encourage girls to get an education. After several threats, a Taliban gunman shot her in the head on October 9th hoping to silence the young advocate.  It didn’t work. In spite of a...