Dick Celeste

Credentials: 1979-1981

Position title: Former Director, Peace Corps

black and white headshot of Peace Corps Director, Dick Celeste

Richard (Dick) Celeste has an unusual career trajectory.  Following his education at Yale and Oxford, he worked at the Peace Corps headquarters; as Personal Assistant to the US Ambassador in India; in real estate development; served as a state legislator in Ohio and as Lt. Governor.  After a stint as Director of the Peace Corps, Celeste was elected to two terms as Governor of Ohio.  Celeste then headed a small economic development consultancy until 1997, when he returned to India as US Ambassador.   From 1990 until his departure for India, Celeste also chaired the Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable at the National Academy of Sciences. In 2002 he become the 12th President of Colorado College, where he served for nine years.  He has been and is a member or chair of a number of corporate and not for profit boards.  He and his wife Jacqueline have a son, Sam, who is 23, and he has six grown children from a previous marriage.