6:00 PM - 8:00 PM Wednesday, October 28, 2009
 45 SW Ankeny Street at SW First Avenue              
SmartPark 2.5 blocks north at Naito and Davis; MAX Skidmore Fountain station  
**FREE WITH YOUR PAID MEMBERSHIP**        $10 non-members and guests

Wharton alumni RSVP to rgardier@mba1984.hbs.edu.  Please register in advance so we can advise the caterer accordingly.

Harvard Business School Association of Oregon members and guests are invited to meet at the new Mercy Corps Global Headquarters on Naito Parkway in Old Town.  We will tour the new Action Center, socialize, savor a selection of light refreshments, and hear a presentation by Paul Dudley Hart, Senior VP of Mercy Corps.   

Mercy Corps is a non-profit organization with an annual budget of nearly $300 million.  It is a team of 3700 professionals helping turn crisis into opportunity for millions around the world:  engineers, financial analysts, drivers, community organizers, project managers, public health experts, administrators, social entrepreneurs and logisticians working in more than 40 countries.  On October 9, 2009, Mercy Corps opens the doors of its new global headquarters in Portland's Old Town Chinatown neighborhood at 28 SW First Avenue.  The first floor is an Action Center, a window into Mercy Corps' work where visitors receive a hands-on educational experience about hunger and poverty.  Adjacent to the Action Center will be the Smithsonian exhibit "Design for the Other 90%," featuring some of the most inspired inventions to improve the lives of low-income people around the world.

Come tour the new Action Center, and then hear SVP Paul Dudley Hart speak about a unique market-driven program, The Phoenix Fund.  The Phoenix Fund harnesses the power of business to transform lives.  Through the Phoenix Fund, entrepreneurial business ideas are identified and nurtured into sustainable businesses, utilizing the distributed Mercy Corps network.

As Mercy Corps’ Senior Vice President, Paul Dudley Hart brings 25 years of senior management experience, as well as a highly successful track record in organizational leadership and management. Paul was formerly CEO of Pacific Crest Outward Bound School, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, with operations throughout the West Coast providing education programming to inspire self-esteem, self-reliance, concern for others and care for the environment. Paul grew up in England, emigrated to Australia at age 17, served as seaman and diver aboard a square rigged sailing ship doing underwater filming in the South West Pacific, spent 10 years in the U.S. Antarctic Research Program (USARP), and had responsibility for USARP’s principal ocean science operation. Over 10 years, Paul spent 90 months deployed in Antarctica. He moved next to The Woods Hold Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), and was a key WHOI team member responding to the opportunities and massive international public interest following the 1985 discovery of RMS Titanic.