With a distinguished business and government career behind him, former U.S. Ambassador Delano E. Lewis has launched a bold new initiative for this decade and beyond. The Left-Right-Forward Education Foundation, a 501 (3)(c) non-profit, is designed to educate, inform and inspire the public about working with business, communities, and government to help move this country forward in a positive way.
“The first phase of the foundation is our Left-Right-Forward podcast. Since we started, the podcast has already featured some of the nation’s top government and business leaders,” explains Lewis, who hosts the program and interviews prominent individuals in a friendly, conversational format.
Ambassador Lewis’ guests come from many of the famous and prominent people he has worked with or been acquainted with during a career that has ranged from his early roots in Kansas City, KS to service in the Peace Corps in Africa, being named CEO of Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company (C&P Telephone Company), President and CEO of National Public Radio, appointed by President Clinton as Ambassador to South Africa, and serving on the boards of directors of multiple Fortune 500 companies.
“Many of the guests I have reached out to have indicated that they normally don’t do a podcast, but for me they have enthusiastically agreed,” Lewis says. “The lineup for the first year was nothing short of a ‘Who’s Who’ in our country.“
Notable guests have included: Former U.S. Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell; former American career diplomats and ambassadors Kenton Keith and Vicki J. Huddleston; Kathleen Sebelius, former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services and Governor of Kansas; and Jeh Charles Johnson, former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security.
Interviews have also featured leaders from the business community, such as Robert Johnson, the Co-founder of Black Entertainment Television (BET), who became the first African American billionaire; Margery Kraus, the Founder and Executive Chairman of APCO Worldwide, a global advisory and advocacy communications consultancy; Debra Lee, the former Chairman and CEO of BET; and Donald E. Graham, the majority owner and Chairman of Graham Holdings Company, the former publisher of The Washington Post, and the lead independent Board Director of Facebook.
The Left-Right-Forward Podcast also focuses on current issues of the day, such as the current “Constitutional Crisis” with commentary by Bill Rich, a Constitutional law professor at the Washburn School of Law; and Muriel Morisey, a retired Constitutional law professor at Temple University. In addition, Ambassador Lewis has conducted podcast interviews with Mark Warner, the senior United States Senator from Virginia, Vice Chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus and the Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee; Michael Steele, former Lt. Governor of Maryland and former Chair of the National Republican Party; and Terry McAuliffe, former Virginia Governor and former Chair of the National Democratic Party.
Based in Las Cruces, New Mexico, the Left-Right-Forward Podcast is produced and distributed at local NPR station KRWG FM.
The Left-Right-Forward Education Foundation
The podcast is only the first step for The Left-Right-Forward Education Foundation. Its mission is to educate, inform, and inspire the youth of New Mexico and the South West. It was set up in the belief that there is a lack of understanding on how our federal government works, through the interaction of the three branches of government — the executive, legislative, and the judiciary — and its impact on our states and our communities.
In addition, Ambassador Lewis says the Foundation is based on the belief that business and labor play a strong part in the workings of our democracy. Therefore, Left-Right-Forward Education Foundation will explore with youth how business and labor interact with governments, federal, state, and local, and their collective impacts on our communities. Left-Right-Forward Education Foundation will use a variety of methods to supply and inform relevant information and knowledge on targeted topics:
- Seminars and Forums teaching the workings of our national government and how it impacts on our state government and local communities.
- Classrooms and online education methods to teach the subjects of government, politics, business and labor. These programs will focus on how each sector impacts one another.
- Hosting conferences with business, labor, political and community leaders to educate our youth by example.
- Raising special funds to provide Left-Right-Forward scholarships for the most deserving students to pursue their dreams.
“It is our ultimate goal to try and inspire our citizens, especially our middle and high school students, to help give them the confidence to achieve great things,” Ambassador Lewis explains. “We believe that our donors will not only receive personal inspiration and information from the podcast, but will also know that their support will help in educating our students about our democracy.”
To listen to Left-Right-Forward Podcast or learn more about the available episodes, visit https://leftrightforwardpodcast.com. To learn more about the Left-Right-Forward Education Foundation, visit https://www.lrfef.org.
